Neuropsychological Testing

Clinical neuropsychology is a field with historical origins in both psychology and neurology. The primary activity of neuropsychologists is assessment of brain functioning through structured and systematic behavioral observation. Neuropsychological tests are designed to examine a variety of cognitive abilities, including speed of information processing, attention, memory, language, and executive functions, which are necessary for goal-directed behavior.By testing a range of cognitive abilities and examining patterns of performance in different cognitive areas, neuropsychologists can make inferences about underlying brain function. Neuropsychological testing is an important component of the assessment and treatment of traumatic brain injury, dementia, neurological conditions, and psychiatric disorders. Neuropsychological testing is also an important tool for examining the effects of toxic substances and medical conditions on brain functioning.Before the introduction of neuroimaging te chniques like the computed tomography (CAT scan) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the primary focus of neuropsychology was diagnosis. Since clinicians lacked non-surgical methods for directly observing brain lesions or structural abnormalities in living patients, neuropsychological testing was the only way to determine which part of the brain was affected in a given patient. Neuropsychological tests can identify syndromes associated with problems in a particular area of the brain.For instance, a patient who performs well on tests of attention, memory, and language, but poorly on tests that require visual spatial skills such as copying a complex geometric figure or making designs with colored blocks, may have dysfunction in the right parietal lobe, the region of the brain involved in complex processing of visual information. When a patient complains of problems with verbal communication after a stroke, separate tests that examine production and comprehension of language help neu ropsychologists identify the location of the stroke in the left hemisphere.Neuropsychological tests can also be used as screening tests to see if more extensive diagnostic evaluation is appropriate. Neuropsychological screening of elderly people complaining of memory problems can help identify those at risk for dementia versus that experiencing normal age-related memory loss. As neuropsychological testing came to play a less vital role in localization of brain dysfunction, clinical neuropsychologists found new uses for their skills and knowledge.By clarifying which cognitive abilities are impaired or preserved in patients with brain injury or illness, neuropsychologists can predict how well individuals will respond to different forms of treatment or rehabilitation. Although patterns of test scores illustrate profiles of cognitive strength and weakness, neuropsychologists can also learn a great deal about patients by observing how they approach a particular test. For example, two pat ients can complete a test in very different ways yet obtain similar scores.One patient may work slowly and methodically, making no errors, while another rushes through the test, making several errors but quickly correcting them. Some individuals persevere despite repeated failure on a series of test items, while others refuse to continue after a few failures. These differences might not be apparent in test scores, but can help clinicians choose among rehabilitation and treatment approaches. Performance on neuropsychological tests is usually evaluated through comparison to the average performance of large samples of normal individuals.Most tests include tables of these normal scores, often divided into groups based on demographic variables like age and education that appear to affect cognitive functioning. This allows individuals to be compared to appropriate peers. The typical neuropsychological examination evaluates sensation and perception, gross and fine motor skills, basic and c omplex attention, visual spatial skills, receptive and productive language abilities, recall and recognition memory, and executive functions such as cognitive flexibility and abstraction.Motivation and personality are often assessed as well, particularly when clients are seeking financial compensation for injuries, or cognitive complaints are not typical of the associated injury or illness. Some neuropsychologists prefer to use fixed test batteries like the Halstead-Reitan Battery or the Luria-Nebraska Battery for all patients. These batteries include tests of a wide range of cognitive functions, and those who advocate their use believe that all functions must be assessed in each patient in order to avoid diagnostic bias or failure to detect subtle problems.The more common approach today, however, is to use a flexible battery based on hypotheses generated through a clinical interview, observation of the patient, and review of medical records. While this approach is more prone to bia s, it has the advantage of preventing unnecessary testing. Since patients often find neuropsychological testing stressful and fatiguing, and these factors can negatively influence performance, advocates of the flexible battery approach argue that tailoring test batteries to particular patients can provide more accurate information.Lezak, Muriel Deutsh. Neuropsychological Assessment. 3rd edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Mitrushina, Maura N. , Kyle B. Boone, and Louis F. D'Elia. Handbook of Normative Data for Neuropsychological Assessment. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Spreen, Otfried and Esther Strauss. A Compendium of Neuropsychological Tests: Administration, Norms, and Commentary. 2nd Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Walsh, Kevin and David Darby. Neuropsychology: A Clinical Approach. 4th edition. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 1999.

Findings of Hoi Tin Tong Essay

Nowadays, about one half of youngsters would eat Chinese herbal food. 70% of them would not buy Chinese herbal food more than 3 times per month since it is not a necessary food. The whole of youngsters would not spend more than $400/month and majority of them would not spend more than $100 per month. Basically, all youngsters have a habit for buying specify brand. Mass of them would Chinese herbal food due to the avail. Over 50% of them would consider the needs, price and brand. They would obtain the information from own experiences, friends, family and internet for making buying decision to the food. Since Hoi Tin Tong is a famous and traditional brand in HK, also Hung Fook Tong has built up a fashion image to youngsters and has various types of products, they are the major brand of youngsters would buy constantly. They have occupied half of market and are chosen by 25% of youngsters separately. The others brands are Nin Jiom, Tung Fong Hung, Eu Yan Sang†¦ Thus, Hung Fook Tong is the main competitor of Hoi Tin Tong in market of Chinese Herbal Food. Anyway, a few youngsters feel no need and it is without effectiveness of Chinese herbal food. Hoi Tin Tong Herbal Turtle Gummy : Although â€Å"Hoi Tin Tong† is a famous brand in HK, not more than 50% of youngsters have bought its products before. It proofs that Hoi Tin Tong’s promotion cannot bring stimulate feeling to youngsters. Lots of them have eaten traditional herbal jelly before and some of them have eaten freshness retained jelly series and new product – herbal gummy series. TV advertisement is the chief to communicate with multitude. It has large broad coverage and stronger impression. So that TV advertisement of herbal turtle gummy is successful for the target group of youngsters, about 60% of youngsters have known this new product and around 30% of them have bought before. They feel it is an originality product for the market. Besides, least 30% of youngsters would get the information from friends, family and branch. It is one of the media to spread the gummy. Youngsters are updated to trend by keeping close pace with advertisement and influenced by their friends or family members in certain extend. However turtle gummy is a new product in the market, most of them would make buying decision due to curiousness thus. Some of them would buy the gummy base on friend’s recommendations, as youngsters are affected by their contemporaries easily. Only a few youngsters would buy base on the avail, brand and needs, because youngsters cannot obtain enough information from fewer channel. But around 40% of them still feel the advertisement lack of persuasion; they would not spend more money on the unnecessary goods, as they are not understand the avail and advantages absolutely of gummy. In order to draw their attention and propagandize the characteristic of gummy, Hoi Tin Tong should add some new elements into and retain the good one. For example, invite a star who to be their spokesman to promote the gummy can attract youngsters. Then, youngsters build up a smart image thought the advertisement. By the taste of gummy, combine with product test, most of youngsters are not favor the taste of turtle gummy so much, even unpalatable. Over 80% of them gave not more than 6 marks (0=the lowest, 10=the highest). And they said that the gummy is strange and too bitter. Also, some of them feel thirsty after eating. Hoi Tin Tong may make some changes of the taste in order to increase the opportunity of continuously youngsters’ buying behavior. Moreover, majority of youngsters buy the gummy from branch. All of them feel so difficult to buy and over 50% of youngsters expect that they can buy from convenience and supermarket. Even this is one of the important reasons to generate why they do not buy the gummy. In addition, all the world is face the financial tsunami now; youngsters feel the price is too expensive. It also is one of the main reasons for the youngsters do not buy the gummy. They would compare the gummy with others gummy in the market base on the taste, size, avail, brand, etc. Also, they feel the avail is not as same as traditional turtle jelly. And half of youngsters suggested that the best price should be $8/pack. Thus, Hoi Tin Hong should modulate the price of turtle gummy to humor the younger. Furthermore, more than half of youngsters would keep on consuming it, if turtle gummy is conductive to improve the health. So Hoi Tin Tong should do something to set a certain image for turtle gummy and show detail information of its avail to youngsters Besides, there are about 75% of youngsters feel the package of gummy is quite beautiful. The yellow color is very sharp. But package design is not enough to make buying decision of youngsters; over 50% of them don’t like the gummy as they like traditional turtle jelly more. The majority reasons are that they feel the taste of jelly is better and like eating in the branch. Only 40% of them like turtle gummy more, because they feel the package are convenience to carry out anywhere. Minority of them like gummy more than jelly is due to the cheaper price and better taste. Ultimately, we know that youngsters have not enough information to realize turtle gummy. Then, they would not buy and try it in order to reduce the risk. Hoi Tin Tong should establish a positive and special image for turtle first. It can increase satisfaction of youngsters and modify their viewpoints being better.

Relationship of Hamlet and Gertrude

In the Shakespearean play Hamlet, the conflict between Hamlet and his mother, Gertrude, is parallel to the main conflict of the story. Hamlet is motivated to avenge by the ghost after he is upset when Gertrude marries Claudius. Hamlet’s view of society, especially women, is also shaped by his mother’s decisions, thus developing his character; Hamlets character is shown as indecisive when he decides to confront his mother. As the play starts, Hamlet is disappointed with his mother’s marriage to Claudius.He expresses his disagreement by complaining about Gertrude marrying Claudius within two month of his father’s death. In act one of the play, Hamlet says, â€Å"O most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not nor it cannot come to good, But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue†(1. 2. 156-8). Here Hamlet reveals his discomfort with his mother’s relationship which leads to his wanting to get revenge. But at that point, the Ghost of King Hamlet appears to give him an ultimate purpose of avenging his death.Through the play, Hamlet works toward accomplishing that goal driven by discomfort toward Gertrude’s relation with Claudius. Hamlet makes social comment about women that are negative in nature. He usually makes those comments to Ophelia, for example when he tells her to go to the â€Å"nunnery†. These comments however are fueled by his anger toward his mother. At the beginning of the play he sees Ophelia as a pure woman, but his view changes over time. This is a reflection of his view toward his mother as apparent by Hamlet’s remark about his mother’s relationship with Claudius.At first Hamlet is not sure about why his mother married Claudius, but he quickly decides that the decision his mother made was based on women’s weak mind. The weakness of women is a social bias of Shakespearean plays. Hamlet decides that he is not going to confront his mother at the beginning of the play, after he sees Claudius feeling guilty about his murder; Hamlet chooses to confront his mother and tell her the truth because he trusts her. Even then his mother does not believe him and thinks he is crazy. This shows that Gertrude is not on Hamlet’s side but on Claudius’s side.This fuels Hamlet’s anger toward Claudius even more. Also Hamlets change in mind to trust his mother shows his indecisive character, which develops through the play. The relationship between Gertrude and Hamlet is never made completely clear during the play. Hamlet’s dislike of his mother’s relationship with Claudius is very clear however. While Hamlet is motivated to avenge his father’s death by Gertrude’s action, he is uncertain about whether it his completely his mother’s fault as seen by him trusting his mother.

Development of a measurement model for balance management Research Paper

Development of a measurement model for balance management - Research Paper Example They play an imperative role in motivating the goals of a development-oriented nation (Aaker 2001, p. 56). Additionally, there should be an integration of the tools through critical assessment of both qualitative and quantitative parameters as observed below. There are lots of fundamental links of culture, leadership and strategy in regards to the development of measurement. In other words, the aforementioned tools of development have direct ramifications on the aspects of balanced management especially in spurring the expansion of the economy. For instance, culture is an imperative objective when drafting plans for development oriented projects because it has a direct influence on people (Niven 2005, p. 124). On that account, a balanced scorecard is performance management tool of strategy that is in the form of a report. It is a semi-structured with support derived from design methods and other automation tools. For that matter, it functions in the tracking of duties and activities by workers to enable managers have a control in the actions of the organization. In other words, there is also a link on the context of personal refinement on the areas of education, lifestyle, ideals and national aspirations for future improvement. Therefore, this management tool has been key especially in the annual survey of performance-oriented firms such as Bain & Companies. Therefore, in terms of impacting on the development of the organization, it is crucial to note a few observations. For instance, a balanced scorecard inculcates the mixture of differing presentations that are both non-financial and financial. It has a direct correlation with development in the context of reforming the minds of the employees in balancing their income sheets. This suggests that factors such as traditional material culture of a society come in handy when defining the goals of development and the measurement success (Jacobson & Shepard 2008, p.156). Additionally, there are also other elements o f intangibles such as customs, language, dress code and even acquisition of technology that impacts directly on the balance scorecard on the management of a country. In contrast, culture also influences the strategies of development when stipulating the goals of a community through its leadership. In other words, there is a variable uniformity in the context of informational data imparted upon firms in influencing leading inputs such as physical and human processes. On the other hand, there is also the factor of culture gap strategy that entails a policy approach that affects development in several ways. For example, culture gap strategy plays a key role in affecting the operations of development measurement in the context of finding alternative solutions. Additionally, it brings harmony between the sociological context of the corporate firms and the concern of attaining the goal of a balance management. In other words, it is a grand folly in integrating the culture gap strategy in a society and its leadership in relation to the strategies stipulated. On that case, there is also an imperative need to evaluate the issues of development choices such as the GDP of a work group and inter-generational conflicts that affect the economy (MacKinnon 2012, p. 209). This suggests that cultural change should compliment with the development strategies set by the given leadership of the management in focusing for the future. Alternatively, cultural strategic gaps of development must also take into

Americans share the basic beliefs that comprise American political Essay

Americans share the basic beliefs that comprise American political culture yet disagree on many issues along the lines of class, race, gender, and religion - Essay Example It is wrong to discriminate or victimize a person due to their opposing or different cultural orientations. On the contrary this should be used to enhance unity in the nation. Differences in race have been the cause of serious chaos and fights with certain races having been treated as inferior over the others. The fight against racism has yielded well and in the recent past the charges for racial prejudice are quite high. Religious tolerance is witnessed in many parts of the world although there has been serious conflict between Muslims and Christians in some parts of the world e.g. Nigeria. Americans vote along established political lines that have been drawn over the years. Candidates running for the prime positions such as the president have always tried to align their quest and bid to rule the land with the established political cultures so they can reap abundantly and gunner the needed votes. What is funny is that despite people in the United States have differences that range from gender, race, religion and culture but when it comes to elections they always vote in a certain manner that can be predicted easily by political analysts. This paper will therefore look deeply at the factors that are considered in the voting systems in the US and the aspects of unity and thinking that bind the people in the society. The people who vote have interests which are common and the problems that they face in the society are closely the same regardless of the racial, religious or cultural differences that they may be having. This can literally explain the reason why they will form a certain voting culture that can be used to determine how they can vote in an election. During election, the Americans will use their democratic rights and since they are not bound by any law to vote for a certain candidate they will choose their preferred one. However, after analyzing the voting trends the voting must align to a certain trend. This trend is a representation of the

Legal job protections Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Legal job protections - Essay Example Social Security Act enacted August 14, 1935, the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) of 1986, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 may protect Amanda. The 1935 Social Security Act requires eligible people to receive unemployment benefits when due (State of Wisconsin, 2014). Title VII protects employees from unlawful termination of employment (U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2014). The COBRA guarantees Health Care Benefits to eligible employees who have lost their jobs. The 1935 Social Security Act may protect Amanda because she will qualify for unemployment benefits. The company will fire Amanda for unintentional actions. She has also worked for more than 680 hours in the company and received significant wages to launch a claim (The Employment Development Department, 2014). Amanda will be available and able to work though wholly unemployed. Amanda may enjoy unemployment benefits for 46 weeks. The COBRA may protect her health benefits for a limited period if the company terminates her employment. Indeed, Amanda and her family will enjoy their health benefits since her termination may not relate to gross misconduct. Moreover, the firm has more than 20 employees, and Amanda was a participant in the company’s health plan that mandates the company to continue maintaining the health scheme (U.S. Department of Labor, 2014). After termination, COBRA may guarantee health benefits to Amanda for a maximum of 18

Chapter 8 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Chapter 8 - Assignment Example They still stay at home because they can be easily being managed in the home environment. This is also called the day treatment (Simpson, 2004). This is a resource-intense high level of care, for those patients with high levels of addiction who need 24 hours of care because of their mental health, addictive behavior, and medical needs. This is to make recovery possible and take less time. They may be unable to avoid substance abuse due to the home environment or psychiatric (Simpson, 2004). This program includes the residents and staff and all members of the community and teaches social responsibilities and coping skill. A case manager’s role is to ensure that an individual reaches his optimum level of wellness and functionality within his environment. They assess the needs of patients and family and coordinate care services. This includes counseling, education, rehabilitation, nutrition and transportation. Case managers also to ensure that provision of care is in the most comprehensive and cost-effective manner for the individual family and his insurance providers (Zehner, 2012). They monitor the continuity of care and serve as an advocate for the individual. A counselor serves as a therapist to family groups, individuals, and couples. Counselors do not plan and coordinate care but are part of the care plan for those seeing a case manager. They do not treat mental illness or provide medication but provide advice and tools for coping with certain situations, for example, health challenges, disabilities, and relationships (Zehner, 2012). A national review of state alcohol and drug treatment programs and certification standards for substance abuse counselors and preventive professionals. The standards used are the client’s rights, governance of the program, and payment to the program, environmental sanitation, statistical reporting, client’s case reports and quality of care reviews (Zehner,

Strategic Management & Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Strategic Management & Marketing - Essay Example as the process of dividing consumers or potential buyers, in market into different segments or groups in which customer share same level of interest in the comparable set of needs fulfilled by different marketing plans. Customers always segment themselves and they take no notice how companies segments them. When they choose to buy any competing product or service, they select proposition that suits them better than any other. To capture maximum market share, companies must make sure that their offerings meet the requirement of customers and should offer price that customers perceive as value for money (McDonald and Dunbar 2004). The input of winning proposition provides the detail understanding of customers include who they are and where they are found to be, as this understanding plays a vital role in segmentation process. The purpose of this report is to analyze the market segmentation and target customers of desktops, launched by Dell and it will analyze positioning of the desktop s that Dell is offering to the customers around the world. Micheal Dell founded Dell in 1984 in Texas. He has a different and unique vision of designing, manufacturing, and selling the technology. More than 109,000 employees are working for Dell around world and they are committed to make technology working hard for the customers. Dell have made many efforts to make technology more reachable to the customers and organizations around the globe and more than 120,000 computer systems shipped everyday to more than 180 countries, that is more than one computer in every second. The business of Dell designed in such a way that it caters different needs of organization, small and medium businesses, educational institutes, government bodies, health-care providers and for home users of computer. Dell is number one PC provider to big enterprises of the world and number one public sector customer’s provider in USA. The company does business with more than 95% companies of Fortune 500

Implementation Plan Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Implementation Plan - Case Study Example This design of the proposed system will save on cost and subsequently increase the profit margins by the end of the financial year. The implementation report will also highlight on the systems approach for building a technological software application that universally integrates all the end user entities within a central information system. Automation of this project passes will go through specific software development phases. These processes start from feeling the need of automation (Requirement analysis) to reaping the benefits of automation (project execution) within the proposed environment. In huge organizations like the DaimlerChrysler (DC) Company the implementation partners in this project have to be kept informed in order to ensure a fruitful completion of the implementation plan. A poor implementation in important IT project like this one may result in big operational troubles, huge business loss or even closure of operations. Identifying and examining the business goals of this project form the basis for achieving the objectives of the IT project proposed for the DaimlerChrysler (DC) Company. The project goals and objectives mainly define the sole purpose for carrying out the implementation of the technology project. The objectives of this implementation plan can be divided into two sections, namely: The sharing of technical and general information, for example, the CATIA files can be easily communicated to both internal and external entities authorized to participate or interact with the organization’s system. This is achieved via consolidating activities for the various entities involved with the system. For example, the time for suppliers to make and receive approval orders for mechanical is greatly reduced. Operating a universal or unified system that can be monitored from a central or remote location by a system admin facilitates reducing corruption or fraud that might

Hot IPOs Can Damage your Long-Run Wealth! Essay Example for Free

Hot IPOs Can Damage your Long-Run Wealth! Essay This paper investigates the links between hot markets, long run underperformance and venture capital in the UK using a unique sample of 593 IPOs for the 1985-2003 period. It finds no evidence for long run underperformance for the full sample but does find robust support for significant underperformance during hot markets. The significant hot market return differential relative to the first day trading is consistent with investor sentiment and market timing. The differential relative to the offer price is also statistically significant thereby confirming Ljungqvist et al. ’s (2006) first prediction and providing further support for long run underperformance by hot market IPOs. The evidence does not support certification hypotheses. Hot-market, venture-backed IPOs underperform very significantly while their non-venture counterparts suffer substantial negative returns for only three years post-IPO. Similarly, the significantly negative relationship between underpricing and long-term returns for venture-backed IPOs during hot markets furnishes evidence of market timing. Industry analysis reveals that the return differential is significant for the high-technology sector both for the full sample and separately for venture-backed and non-venture IPOs. Indeed a majority of high-technology firms in the sample went public during hot markets. Cross-sectional regressions provide additional support for significant underperformance by high-technology firms in hot markets for the whole sample and non-venture IPOs. Finally, IPOs in general and venture-backed IPOs in particular with strong pre-IPO earnings growth generated significantly superior performance in all periods. The impact was most marked during hot markets, suggesting a role for robust pre-IPO operating results in determining the likelihood of long-term performance. 1. Introduction Loughran and Ritter (1995) find for a sample of almost 5000 US IPOs 1970-1990 that investors receive annual returns of just 7% on average in the five post-issue years. To place this underperformance in context, investors would have had to invest a staggering 44% more in issuers than in similar-sized non-issuers to achieve the same terminal wealth. Their graphic conclusion is that â€Å"Investing in firms issuing stock is hazardous for your wealth† (Ibid. p. 46). Long run underperformance has puzzled researchers in financial economics ever since and is identified by Ritter and Welch (2002) as possibly the most controversial area of IPO research. This paper has three objectives. The first is empirically to test hypotheses related to hot markets and especially some of those proposed by Ljungqvist, Nanda and Singh (2006). To our knowledge the latter has not been done to date. Ljungqvist et al. argue that investor sentiment is the underlying cause of the IPO underperformance anomaly. They propose that a test of underperformance in hot markets relative to the offer price rather than the first day trading price provides a tougher hurdle. We adduce empirical support for significant underperformance in hot markets relative to both the first day trading price and to the offer price. These are in line with those of Ritter (1991), Cook, Jarrell and Kieschnick (2003) and Helwege and Liang (2004) and Derrien (2005) who link investor sentiment to hot markets. Our results are in agreement with recent findings for IPO markets in other countries. Helwege and Liang (2004) compare US firms going public in hot and cold markets during 1975-2000 and examine their performance over the following five years. Both hot and cold market IPOs are found in the same narrow set of industries and hot markets occur at the same time for many industries. Their results suggest that hot markets reflect greater investor optimism rather than other factors. Cook et al. (2003) also find that US IPOs during hot markets have lower long-term returns than IPOs during cold markets due to sentiment investors driving prices beyond their fair value. Derrien (2005) is one of the few hot market studies to focus on a non-US market. His findings support the view that IPOs occurring during bullish market conditions in France are overpriced. The second objective is to explore the links between long run underperformance and hot markets for a sample of UK IPOs. In this context it is the first attempt to investigate such links in the UK which boasts one of the largest and most developed capital markets outside the United States. Ibbotson and Jaffe (1975) and Ritter (1984) pioneered the hot markets concept. They documented the existence of hot periods of high IPO volume (underpricing) where subsequent underperformance tends to be more dramatic. The implication is that market timing is uppermost in issuers’ minds when taking advantage of market sentiment in such periods. Our UK sample comprises of a set of 593 venture-backed and non-venture IPOs on the Official List of the London Stock Exchange over the period from 1985 up to 2003. The advantages of this sample are twofold. On one hand, it is a relatively large sample according to the definition of Ritter (2003) who points out that Japan and the UK are the only countries other than the US that can muster IPO samples in excess of 500. On the other hand and more importantly, our UK IPO sample differs in one fundamental aspect from US samples. The latter contain a large proportion of high-technology firms while our UK sample is more evenly distributed by industry. Thus our data should provide a basis for robust hypothesis testing of aspects of long run underperformance. The third objective of the paper is to explore the conjecture first postulated by Brav and Gompers (1997) that venture capitalists play an important role in explaining the underperformance puzzle. They show that US venture-backed IPOs outperform non-venture IPOs five years after the offer date and conclude that underperformance primarily resides in small non-venture IPOs which are the most likely to be influenced by investor sentiment. However, our sample shows no significant difference in returns between venture-backed and non-venture IPOs in contrast to the Brav and Gompers (1997) findings. The return differential between hot and normal markets is highly significant for venture-backed IPOs although it is only marginally significant for non-venture firms. Industry analysis reveals that this return differential is significant for the high-technology sector for both the full sample and separately for venture-backed and non-venture IPOs. We find some evidence of venture capitalists exploiting investor sentiment during hot markets which is confirmed by a significantly negative relationship between underpricing and long-term returns for venture-backed IPOs during hot markets. This latter finding contrasts with that of Helwege and Liang (2004) who find no significant role for venture capital presence during either hot or cold markets in the US. The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. In section 2 the literature on long run IPO performance, venture capital involvement and investor sentiment is reviewed. Section 3 describes the data and methodology related to performance measurement. Section 4 discusses the empirical results of univariate sorts and cross-sectional regressions. A final section concludes. 2. Hot Markets and Long-run IPO Underperformance 2. 1 The underperformance anomaly While long run underperformance is well documented for the USA, results for other countries such as the UK are rather limited. Levis (1993) used a sample of 712 UK IPOs 1980-1988 to document significant long-term IPO underperformance 36 months after the first trading day. Espenlaub, Gregory and Tonks (2000) re-examine the evidence on the long-term returns of IPOs for a sample of 588 UK IPOs 1985-1992. Using an event-time framework, they find substantial negative abnormal returns after the first three years irrespective of the benchmark used. Although some researchers underline the role of hot IPO markets, only a few empirical studies have so far compared long-run performance in hot and cold (normal) markets. Helwege and Liang (2004) study a US sample of 3,698 IPOs between 1975 and 2000. Distinguishing between hot, cold and neutral markets they find both hot and neutral market IPOs tend to underperform while cold market IPOs tend to outperform a variety of benchmarks. After adjusting for economic conditions, they find little evidence for cross-sectional differences between the characteristics of hot and cold market IPOs and no significant difference between their post-issue operating performances. These findings lead the authors to conclude that hot markets are primarily driven by investor optimism. Similarly, Cook et al. (2003), using 6,080 US IPOs between 1980 and 2002, show that IPOs during hot markets tend to perform more poorly than IPOs during cold markets. They find that IPOs trade at higher valuations and their offer sizes are larger during hot markets and that these firms are less likely to survive. They conclude that investor sentiment is a more important feature of IPO markets then hitherto recognised. Non-US studies are rare but Derrien (2005) is a notable exception. He develops a model in which bullish noise trader sentiment during hot markets leads to overpriced IPO shares relative to their long-run intrinsic value. Using a sample of 62 IPOs on the French stock exchange for the hot period of 1999 till 2001, he empirically shows that the long-run stock price performance of IPO shares is negatively impacted by investor sentiment. Ljungqvist, Nanda and Singh (2006) build a theoretical model in which the presence of irrational investors leads to hot markets and the associated long-run underperformance. In their model, sentiment investors purchase stock from institutional investors at inflated prices. Underwriters allocate new issues to their institutional client base if there is insufficient sentiment demand, perhaps due to a hot IPO market and many issuers trying to tap the capital markets. These institutional investors then sell off their holdings at increased prices to exuberant investors post-IPO who are driven by market fads. The sentiment driven prices, on the other hand, deflate over time, leading to negative returns. Below we extend the existing hot market studies by empirically testing some of the hypotheses proposed by Ljungqvist et al. (2006). 2. 2 Venture capitalists and investor sentiment While much of this literature stresses asymmetric information and the certification role of venture capitalists, a part of it also ascribes a role to investor sentiment. Brav and Gompers (1997) were the first to test the long-run performance of a sample of new issues disaggregated into venture-backed and non-venture IPOs. They use a sample of 934 venture capital backed IPOs and 3,407 non-venture IPOs in the United States from 1972 through 1992 and show that venture-backed IPOs outperform non-venture IPOs over a five-year period. They conduct an asset pricing analysis and find that venture-backed IPOs do not underperform while non-venture IPOs indicate severe underperformance. Partitioning the non-venture IPOs on the basis of size shows that underperformance resides primarily in small non-venture IPOs. Brav and Gompers (1997) argue that bouts of investor sentiment are a possible explanation for the severe underperformance of small non-venture IPOs because the latter are more likely to be held by individuals. Along similar lines, Megginson and Weiss (1991) show that institutional ownership of IPOs is substantially higher for venture-backed than for non-venture IPOs. They report that institutions hold, on average, 42. 3% of the offer in venture-backed firms as compared to 22. 2% of the amount offered in non-venture backed firms. We employ the hot market concept to shed new light on the role and performance of venture versus non-venture backed firms 3. Data and Methodology 3. 1 Data A unique sample was selected from the IPOs listed on the London Stock Exchange for the period from January 1985 to December 2003. IPOs of investment trusts, financial companies, building societies, privatisation issues, foreign-incorporated companies, unit offerings and spin-offs are excluded. The filtering process also excludes share issues at the time of a relisting after a firm is temporarily suspended or transfers from lower tier markets such as the now defunct Unlisted Securities Market and the Alternative Investment Market. We exclude the latter IPO market established in 1995 since it has no minimum market capitalization and would likely lead to a small company bias. The final sample consists of 593 IPOs of ordinary shares by domestic operating companies on the Official List of the London Stock Exchange with listing methods comprising placements or offers for sale at a fixed price. This is the result of the filters applied to a total of 2,489 IPOs that listed on the Official List of the London Stock Exchange for the period 1985-2003. The sample include some 317 venture-backed and 276 non-venture IPOs. The data sources include Datastream, the London Stock Exchange Quality of Markets Quarterly Reviews, Primary Market Fact Sheets and Yearbooks, IPO prospectuses, Extel Financial microfiches and Thomson Financial Global Access Database.

Investment Appraisal Report Example

Investment Appraisal Report Example Re: Investment in Kingfisher Plc Following our conversation earlier, I have prepared a report into Kingfisher Plc to help you with your investment decision. I have split this report into two sections, to help you analyse the company’s financial management practices and also to determine what represents a fair price for the company’s shares. As we discussed earlier, when making any investment it is vital to consider the financial management policies and practices of the company. These include what the company invests in; how these investments perform; how the company raises funds to invest; and how the company treats its profits. As such, the first part of this section will address these four sections in turn, and how these affect the performance of the company. The second section will address the fair value of the shares of the company. This is because, whilst the company may perform well, if the shares are purchased for more than a fair value, based on the company’s ability to earn, they may not provide a good return to an investor. I hope this report will be of interest to you, please let me know if you have any questions about any aspects. Part A)  Financial Management Investments Kingfisher’s primary investment over the past five years has been in tangible assets, such as property, plant and equipment, which have made up over fifty percent of total assets over the past five years. The majority of the remaining assets are composed of goodwill, with small amounts devoted to pension plans, financial derivatives and other intangible assets. This can be seen in the table below: Table of non current asset values for Kingfisher Group Plc (all in  £ millions) Assets 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Property, Plant and Equipment 3041 2781 3032 3265 3211 3698 Goodwill 2652 2455 2463 2559 2552 2532 Other Assets 309 146 289 354 380 532 (Source: Kingfisher, 2008) The main trend in the assets of Kingfisher has been a steady rise in the value of property, plant and equipment as well as other assets. The main change in the other assets is a rise in the level of post employment benefits; deferred tax assets; and derivative financial instruments, which were not on the balance sheet in 2003 but have a total value of over  £200 million in 2008. In addition, the drop in all values from 2003 to 2004 is a result of the disposal of the Chartwell Land property portfolio, which resulted in a reduction in the value of all asset classes due to the transfer of goodwill associated with the property sold. From 2004 onwards, the company has engaged in a significant expansion program based on organic growth and the opening of new stores. This has naturally increased the value of the total property, plant and equipment; with a small drop in 2007 where the company disposed of some of its less profitable stores. This balance in assets is largely expected because Kingfisher is a retail group, operating stores such as BQ, Screwfix, Castorama, and Brico Depot. As such, the group’s main source of income comes from sales from these stores; hence these stores are the most valuable asset the group owns. In addition, the company maintains a diverse portfolio of businesses across the UK, France and other countries including the Republic of Ireland, Poland, Italy, Spain, Turkey and China. In order to operate in these countries, the group needs to own assets such as stores, offices, and distribution networks. This further increases the percentage of total assets which will be taken up by property, plant and equipment. With regards to the level of goodwill, this became quite high prior to 2003, but has stayed quite constant over the period of the study. This indicates that a significant proportion of the business’ assets have been purchased for more than their book value. This is possibly how the group has managed to obtain such a large portfolio of businesses, and particularly how it has managed to ensure that all of its businesses are in the top three of the domestic markets. However, over the period of the study, the group has not experienced a significant increase or decrease in the level of goodwill, which implies that it has not significantly expanded its portfolio through acquisitions, and the majority of the increase in the value of the total assets has come through organic growth or purchases at close to book value. This is slightly complicated by the group’s goodwill policy, which makes an assessment of the ability of acquired businesses to generate cash each year, and amort ises the level of goodwill to compensate. As such, it is possible that the group has invested a significant amount in buying new businesses, and the value of the goodwill from these businesses has since fallen. However, the annual reports mention that new stores are being opened, not bought, which implies that the group’s expansion policy is to open new stores, rather than acquire existing ones from competitors. Investment appraisal Investment appraisal is generally done on a per project basis, with a company projecting the cashflows, both positive and negative, associated with a project; and then calculating whether the net cashflow will be positive or negative, and by how much. This value can be calculated based on either the absolute value of the cashflows, or on the discounted value of the cashflows which takes into account the fact that cashflows occurring in later years will be less valuable due to inflation and other factors (Knott, 2004). However, when considering an investment in Kingfisher, this methodology is not appropriate, as the company is a continuous operation with no definite start or end point. Indeed, all the new stores the company opens are intended to remain operational for the foreseeable future, hence making it very difficult to calculate their rates of return and net present values. Whilst the company will undoubtedly have an internal method for doing this, perhaps taking the cashflows f or the first five years of operations, this method is not detailed in the annual reports. Nor does Kingfisher reveal details of the exact costs of the investment into stores or their cashflows in the annual reports, thus making it impossible to attempt such an analysis with the available data. As such, it is necessary to analyse the performance of Kingfisher’s overall business, from the point of view of an investor looking to buy shares. As such, the initial purchase of the shares represents the initial investment, and the return made on these shares can be taken to be the future cashflows for the purposes of the analysis. On this basis, it is necessary to look at the annual returns provided by Kingfisher, as well as the change in the value of the shares (Lumby, 1994). Kingfisher annual share price from May 2003 to May 2008 Date Closing Price 27/05/2003 257.25 27/05/2004 285.5 27/05/2005 259 26/05/2006 235.75 25/05/2007 252.75 27/05/2008 138.1 (Source: Yahoo Finance, 2008) Kingfisher earnings per share from 2003 to 2008 Year Earnings per share 2003 16.4 2004 17.4 2005 20.8 2006 12.2 2007 11.8 2008 11.7 (Source: Kingfisher, 2008) As can be seen from these graphs above, Kingfisher’s share price and earnings per share have both fallen over the period of the study. As such, one share purchased for 257 pence in 2003 would be worth just 138 pence in 2008, and the total dividend earnings per share would be just 90 pence. As such, the total return from an investment of 257 pence would be only 228 pence. This implies that an investment in Kingfisher over the past three years would have performed very poorly, with a return of -12.7% over five years, even without considering discount factors and net present values. Indeed, given that the positive cashflows have occurred after the negative cashflows, any investment in Kingfisher would have a negative net positive value for any positive discount factor. In addition, the earnings per share have fallen from 2003 to 2008. Within the period of the study, earnings per share rose from 2003 to 2005, before falling sharply between 2005 and 2006 and then remaining relatively constant. This fall is specifically mentioned in Kingfisher’s 2006 annual report as being due to a significant fall in profits from the UK market, which was driven by â€Å"rising energy costs, higher taxes and pension contributions and [consumer] confidence has been affected by a weaker housing market† (Kingfisher, 2008). This implies that Kingfisher’s investments in the UK have performed poorly over the past three years, and indeed the 2008 annual report shows that the UK investments have further weakened against the background of the global â€Å"credit crunch†. Whilst the credit crunch has affected all markets around the world, Kingfisher specifically points out that the high level of debt in the UK has created even more problems for consu mers, who have less money to spend as their debt payments have risen. As such, Kingfisher’s investments in the UK, which account for around 47% of the group’s total revenue, are unlikely to improve their performance in the near future. Sources of funding Kingfisher main sources of funding All in  £ millions 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Total long term debt 1528 744.9 828.3 1255.5 1432 1620 Total equity 4463 4407 4387.3 4320.4 4421 4724 (Source: Kingfisher, 2008) Kingfisher is strongly dependent on equity as a source of funding, with total shareholder’s equity making up at least three times as much of the funding as long term debt. Short term debt has been excluded from these calculations, partly because short term debt appears to be used only to settle any cashflow issues, and partly because prior to the 2006 accounts short term debt was not declared separately from trade payables. As such, it would be impossible to compare short term debt across the entire period. It is worth point out that the decrease in debt from 2003 to 2004 is largely due to the sale of the Chartwell Land property portfolio mentioned above. The proceeds of this sale were largely used to reduce the level of long term borrowings, thus resulting in a significant drop between 2003 and 2004. However, following this sale, when the debt to equity ratio fell to just 0.17, the amount of debt has risen steadily, to the point where it reached 0.34 in 2008, the same level as in 2003. This rise has been accompanied by a small rise in the level of shareholder equity, but not to the extent that the total asset value has risen as seen in the investments section above. This implies that the store expansion and refurbishment programs mentioned throughout the Kingfisher annual reports during the period of the study have been funded largely by debt. This has caused the company’s debt to equity ratio to rise quite significantly over the period of the study, which has more than doubled the debt to equity ratio. This significant increase in the debt to equity ratio could be a cause for concern, as it potentially places a higher debt burden on the company which must be serviced from profits. As such, if the company’s fortunes continue to suffer due to the effects of the credit crunch, the company may have difficulty paying its debts and may suffer liquidity problems. However, in the 2008 financial statements the net finance costs on the debt are just  £62 million, whilst the operating profit is  £453 million. As such, the company can cover its interest more than seven times from profits, which means that this rise in the level of debt is not currently a significant concern. Of course, running counter to this is the fact that the global credit crunch is expected to increase the effective rates of borrowing, which could increase the interest payments as well as reducing the long term levels of consumer spending. As such, it is possible that the credit crunch will continue to reduce K ingfisher’s profits whilst increasing the interest cost, thus potentially creating financial troubles in the next few years. This potential issue is compounded by the fact that the company capitalised  £1 million of borrowing costs in 2007, and a further  £3 million in 2008, which may indicate issues in paying these loans out of profit. The major sources of debt finance for the business at the current time are medium term notes and other fixed term debt, which make up  £1,436 million of the debt. These have been placed on markets in the UK, Eurozone and United States and have raised capital at a net cost of between 4.1% and 6.9%. As such, the company has relied on non convertible loans raised on public markets. The majority of the remainder is made up of non secured bank loans. This indicates that, even if the company should encounter financial difficulties, it will not necessarily lose any of its property or have its equity diluted by convertible loans. Treatment of profits and dividend policy Year 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Dividend per share (pence) 9.5 9.65 10.65 10.65 10.65 7.25 Earnings per share (pence) 16.4 17.4 20.8 12.2 11.8 11.7 (Source: Kingfisher, 2008) From 2003 to 2005, Kingfisher’s dividend grew by a reasonable amount, although this was not proportional to the increase in earnings per share over the period. This indicates that Kingfisher was using partly using the increase in earnings to boost the dividend, but mainly using it to build up the volume of reserves, pay back debt, and expand the company. As a result of this, the company allowed its earnings per share to rise by more than the level of the dividend. Following the decline in the UK market from 2005 to 2006, and the subsequent fall in the earnings per share for the company, Kingfisher attempted to maintain its dividend at 10.65 pence per share in spite of the fact that this left very little retained earnings. However, in 2008, following a significant fall in the share price, the dividend yield has also fallen to 7.25 pence in spite of the earnings per share remaining at the same level as in previous years. This implies that the company is now encountering difficul ties maintaining its dividend yield at this level, and thus is having to drop its dividend in order to accumulate further reserves. Unfortunately, there is no detail in the Kingfisher accounts around exactly why this reserve is being built up. However, it is interesting to note that the reserves have now been built up to the  £2.2 billion mark, after being maintained at around the  £1.9 billion mark for the period from 2005 to 2007. This may indicate that the company feels that the tough trading conditions will continue for some time, and hence there may be a need to retain more earnings to help cover interest payments in the future. Another potential explanation is that, as a retail company owning a significant amount of property, plant and equipment; Kingfisher has a significant level exposure to the property market in both the UK and France. As such, the company may feel that, with the property markets in the UK and France showing signs of weakness due to the credit crunch, there may soon be a need to revalue the property portfolio in each of these countries. Therefore, the reduced dividend and increase re serve may be an attempt to boost the equity and net asset value of the company in order to protect the value of the company against such a fall. However, the balance sheet tends to reveal a different potential explanation. The rise of  £300 million in the value of the reserves of the company has occurred at the same time as a  £300 million rise in the value of the inventory held by the company. This could be due to the fact that cost price inflation is significantly boosting the cost of inventory and the price of sales, and hence has increased the value of the inventory held by the company. However, the annual report indicates that cost price inflation for the company was just 4% over the previous year. As such, this cost price inflation is unlikely to have created a  £300 million rise in the value of inventory, which is a 20% rise in the total value of inventory. This implies that the rise in the value of the inventory is for another reason, potentially due to a lack of sales or by overbuying of replacement inventory. As such, this does not indicate that the company is making the best use of its profits, nor that it is efficiently pursuing a goal of maximising value for its shareholders. Part B) Fair Value When attempting to assess whether the current share price of Kingfisher Plc represents a fair value for the company, it is necessary to look both as the share price and the market capitalisation; which is the total market value of all the shares. This price is determined by the shares traded on a stock market where brokers buy and sell shares on behalf of their clients. For Kingfisher, the stock market is the London Stock Exchange, and Yahoo Finance (2008) quotes the current share price of the company as 128.2 pence. In addition, the 2008 annual report states there are 2,361 million shares outstanding. This gives the company a total market capitalisation of  £3.027 million as of the 18th August. One potential method of calculating the fair value of the company is through the net asset value of the company. This is because, provided the company can sell all its assets and pay off all its liabilities at their book value, it will realise its net asset value in cash. In addition, in theory the shareholders own a share of the net assets of the company equal to their share of the market capitalisation. Therefore, if the market capitalisation of the company was equal to the net asset value of the company, the share price would be at a fair value. For Kingfisher, the net asset value in the 2008 financial statements is  £4,724 million. This implies that a fair value for the market capitalisation would also be  £4,724 million, which is around 56% higher than the current value of the shares. This would further imply that a fair share price for the company would be 200 pence. However, this method is somewhat flawed because it assumes that all assets can be sold for fair value and al l liabilities can be settled at fair value. In reality, the only time when all assets and liabilities will be sold is if the business is wound up under bankruptcy or liquidity problems. As such, assets are most likely to be auctioned off by the creditors and shareholders are unlikely to receive a fair value for them. Indeed, assets such as inventory are often sold at less than ten per cent of their market value. As such, this method is likely to be unreliable, particularly for a business with such a large volume of inventory (Lumby, 1994). Another method of calculating the potential fair value of a company is to use the value of net earnings and compare this value to the historical price / earnings ratio to work out what the current fair price should be for the shares. Based on this method, the average price / earnings ratio of Kingfisher has been 16.18 over the past five year period. Year 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Average Earnings per share (pence) 16.4 17.4 20.8 12.2 11.8 11.7 15.05 Share price (pence) 257.25 285.5 259 235.75 252.75 138.1 238.0583 Price / Earnings Ratio 15.68598 16.408046 12.45192 19.32377 21.41949 11.80342 16.1821 Applying this to the earnings per share over the past year of 11.7 gives an estimate of the fair value of the share price of 189.33 pence: this is 47% higher than the market value of the shares. As such, this also implies that the current market value of the shares is too low. However, valuing the company on this basis is also flawed, in that it assumes that the company will maintain its past performance, and that the past performance of the shares has been efficient. Indeed, for Kingfisher this is arguably even less of a relevant method by which to judge the shares, as Kingfisher is currently suffering significant problems in its main UK market. Therefore, attempting to value the company based on its past valuations assumes that the company is still performing as it did in the past, something which is arguably not the case. In addition, with many predicting that the Kingfisher’s UK market will continue to shrink, it is possible that the company’s ability to generate ea rnings will be further impaired, and its earnings per share ratio will fall below its average (Lumby, 1994). As such, and given that there is significant uncertainty over the future value of Kingfisher’s assets and liabilities as well as the ability of the company to generate earnings, it is difficult to come up with an analytical method for calculating the fair value of the company. Therefore it is necessary to use the efficient market hypothesis when attempting to value the company. This hypothesis is based on the view that the market produces the fair value of the shares of the company using all available information. As such, the market should already have priced in the potential for Kingfisher’s properties to decrease in value and the potential for the company to be unable to make as much money in the future. This is based on the argument that the market as a whole has access to all the information available, and also has experience in reading and judging signals regarding the value of a company. As such, if Kingfisher were currently trading at too high a price, people wo uld sell the shares until the value moved to a fair value. In contrast, were the company currently trading at too cheap a price, participants in the market would buy the shares until the value was driven up to a fair price. As such, the efficient market hypothesis implies that the current fair price for the Kingfisher shares is the price at which they are currently traded on the open market. Therefore, the fair price of the shares is 128.2 pence. However, the efficient market hypothesis is based on markets only being able to act on available information. As such, it is possible that there is a fundamental problem with Kingfisher which will affect the share price but which is not included in the publicly available information. In addition, the market price for the shares can be driven by factors such as investment banks buying up shares, or takeover rumours. Therefore, in the short term the market value of shares may not reflect their fair value, as the market may not have all the information or may be being driven by other factors. However, in the long term, the professional analysts who are employed by many of the banks and investment funds which buy and sell shares will be best able to value the share s, and hence the best estimate of the fair value of the shares is their current market value: 128.2 pence. References Kingfisher (2008) Kingfisher Plc. http://www.kingfisher.co.uk/ Accessed 16th August 2008. Knott, G. (2004) Financial Management. Palgrave MacMillan. Lumby, S. (1994) Investment Appraisal and Financing Decisions. Thomson Learning. Turner, G. (2008) The Credit Crunch: Housing Bubbles, Globalisation and the Worldwide Economic Crisis. Pluto Press. Yahoo Finance (2008) Kingfisher Share Price Chart. http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=KGF.Lt=5y Accessed 18th August 2008.

Digital Forensic Computers Forensic Forensic Models Information Technology Essay

Digital Forensic Computers Forensic Forensic Models Information Technology Essay Today the increasing number of computer and electronics components has demanded the use of Digital forensic showing that the digital forensics can be implemented in specialized fields of law enforcement, computer security, and national defense. In the information technology period, information stored in the devices are digital as mostly the institution or organization use computer storage media as compare to paper used by writers, scholars, scientists, musicians, and public figures. This gives new challenges to these concern persons related to accessing and preserving information, data recovery and maintaining trust. In this article, review of the currently available investigation processes, methodologies, different tools used by forensics experts and finally a conclusion will be done. Keywords Digital Forensic, Computer Forensic, Forensic Models, Computer Forensic Investigation, Digital Forensic Methods, Forensic Techniques, Forensic Tools Introduction Digital forensics is the branch of forensic involving the recovery and investigation of material found in digital devices due to incident of computer crime occurrence. Digital forensic is a synonym for the computer forensic in early start but today it includes other area of investigation like computer, database, and network, mobile which are capable of storing digital data. Due to much advancement in various types of technology devices, media, digital forensics has defined the sub branches according to the investigation required. One of the digital forensics branches are Computer forensics, Mobile device forensics, Network forensics, Forensic data analysis and Database forensics. Computer forensics involves the examination of the digital media stored in the computers for investigation purpose, mobile forensic is recovery of digital evidence from a mobile device, network forensic is the getting evidence related to network traffic, information gathering or evidence collection of intrusion detection, forensic data analysis is investigate the pattern of fraudulent action using structure data while the final one is database forensic is the study of databases and their metadata including the its contents, log files and in-RAM data investigation. When the computer forensic is in consideration usually three different sets of people from Law Enforcement agencies, Military, Business Industry are involved with the intention of tracking down attackers/hackers and criminals who attack the security of systems and use computers for unauthorized activities. Computer Forensic address the issues of National and Information Security, Corporate Espionage, White Collar Crime, Child Pornography, Traditional Crime, Incident Response, Employee Monitoring, Privacy Issues. In the following this paper start with investigation phases, methods and techniques and tools how this information helps the novice in the computer, network, mobile and database forensic. Forensic Methodologies à ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ Phases of Computer Forensic Before discussing the forensic methodologies one should be familiar with the few terms of forensic terms. One of them is forensic evidence. A brief overview of evidence, categorization, rules, standard guide, and its basic principles in order to ensure the chain of custody will be outlined. Evidence is any item or information gathered at the scene of a crime, or at related locations, which is found to be relevant to an investigation. There are many different types of evidence, from DNA and tire marks, to bloodstains and fingerprints Evidence should be Admissible, Authentic, Complete, Reliable and Believable. Evidence chain of custody protects its integrity. It can be categorized as primary (best type evidence using documentation), secondary (Oral or eye witness), direct, conclusive, circumstantial, corroborative and opinion evidence. There are guides available for Computer Based Evidence e.g. By Association of Chief Police Officers. During evidence collection following principle should be strictly followed by investigator There should be no change of data on a computer or other media taken Person should be competent while accessing original data held on a target computer Audit trail or other record of all processes applied to computer-based evidence should be created and preserved. He will ensure the law and principles of possession and access to information contained in a computer. So many forensic investigation processes have been developed till now. The objective in this paper is to make the forensic investigation process or model with common phases of forensic to perform the intended investigation as compared to others model. Few models that exist are mentioned below. Computer Forensic Investigative Process (1984) Abstract Digital Forensics Model (ADFM) (2002) Enhanced Digital Investigation Process Model (EDIP) (2004) Computer Forensics Field Triage Process Model (CFFTPM) (2006) Scientific Crime Scene Investigation Model (2001) Common Process Model for Incident and Computer Forensics (2007) Network Forensic Generic Process Model (2010) Here is the generic investigation process namely the Generic Computer Forensic Investigation Model (GCFIM) proposed in this article that share the common phases with previously developed models. Figure below, demonstrate the proposed GCFIM. Model (GCFIM).JPG Pre Process is the first phase of Generic Computer Forensic Investigation Model. In this phase the tasks are linked to other tasks that required to be completed before the investigating and collecting the official data. These tasks are having the required approval from concern authority, preparing and setting up of the tools to be utilized, etc. Acquisition and Preservation is the second phase of Generic Computer Forensic Investigation Model. In this phase tasks performed related to the acquiring and collecting evidence in acceptable manner in which concern data is together base on the accepted methods utilizing a variety of recovery techniques, then the task is identifying the digital components from the acquired evidence, and finally in this phase the tasks are transporting, storing and preserving of data such as creating a good quality case management and ensuring an acceptable chain of custody. Overall, this phase is where all concern data are captured, stored and presented for the next phase. Analysis is the third phase of Generic Computer Forensic Investigation Model. This is the core and the heart of the forensic investigation process. It has the largest part of phases including the tasks such as evidence tracing and validation, recovery of hidden or encrypted data, data mining, and timeline etc. Different types of analysis are performed on the acquired data using the appropriate tools and techniques to recognize the source of crime and eventually discovering the person accountable of the crime. Presentation is the fourth phase of Generic Computer Forensic Investigation Model. The finding from analysis phase are documented and presented to the authority with expert testimony. The documentation presented also includes the adequate and acceptable evidence in order to understand by the concern party easily. The final outcome from this phase is either to prove or disprove the alleged criminal acts. Post-Process is the last phase of Generic Computer Forensic Investigation Model. This phase concerns only the appropriate finishing of the investigation work. Digital and physical evidence should be appropriately handed over to the authorize owner and kept in secure place, if required. Finally but not the last, if there is a need to review the investigative process in each phase it should be done for the perfection of the future investigations. Challenges during Forensic Investigation There are some technical, legal, resource as well as general and specific challenges during the investigators face. Technical challenges are faced in finding the criminals over the internet; legal challenges are the result of not competitive with the currently technology, social environment and structure while the challenges in resources that the support should be available in all levels. The challenges that are faced during computer forensic in general and specific are the tools or techniques limitation from the private sector, no standard definition and agreements of computer crime, no proper background availability to perform testing, huge number of Operating System platforms and file formats due to which unavailability of experts with true titles. Other than these challenges during investigation it may take large space of memory from Gigabytes to Terabytes or even may require the storage area network. For computer forensic expert it is also challenging to have the expertise in RA ID level, embedded system along with Network and Grid computing. Forensic Tools Now in the following few of the forensic tools in the domain of computer, network, mobile, database and some others are briefly described. Reason for Using Computer Forensics Tools There are multiple reasons for choosing the computer forensics tools like systems utilized by the defendants and litigants, to recover the lost data in case of hardware or software malfunction, to investigate about the computer usage in case of employee termination or when the system is attacked by an intruder. To investigate computer crimes different computer forensic tools like disk imaging software for the file structure and hard disk content can be used, for comparing the data between original and copy Hashing tools can be used which assigns unique number for violation verification and for recovery the lost data or deleted data recovery programs can be used. Similarly software and hardware write tools can be used to reconstruct the hard drive bit by bit as these tools generate the copy of hard disk. Encase is well know commercial tool that can perform various tasks like disk imaging and verification and analysis of data while PC Inspector File Recovery is a free tool helps in revealing and recovering the contents stored in any type of storage media that is connected with the computer even if the content is deleted. Network forensics Network forensics deals with the capture, recording or analysis of network events in order to discover evidential information about the source of security attacks in a court of law. There is a tool known as eMailTrackerPro that can track down the sender message by detecting the IP address in the header. If there is a need to view all information like IP address, country information or domain information SmartWhoIs can be used as free available network utility. To perform the web forensic famously known tool Mandiant Web Historian can help forensic examiner to verify how the intruders looked into the different sites by reviewing the history files of web site. Other tool Index.dat can be used to view the browsing history, the cookies and the cache as it gives the critical information about a cookie like its key-value pair, the website address associated with the cookie, the date/time the cookie was first created and last accessed and etc. Ethereal is network packet analyzer, WinPcap is the packet capture tool used to capture the packets and AirPcap is the packet capture tool for the IEEE 802.11b/g Wireless LAN interfaces. Mobile Forensics Mobile forensics as the name implies is to investigate data from mobile device for evidence purpose regardless of the mobile system of GSM / GPRS / WIFI technology. Investigator concentrate on either call data or SMS/Email data with the help of different commercial, non commercial, open source, command line or physical mobile forensic tools. The forensics process for mobile devices differ in these three main categories: seizure, acquisition, and examination/analysis while other aspects of the computer forensic process still apply. Some Commercial Forensic Tools include AccessDatas MPE+, FINALMobile Forensics by FINALDATA, Oxygen Forensic Suite, while Open source tools include iPhone Analyzer, the Mobile Internal Acquisition Tool, and TULP2G plug-ins. Performing mobile forensic using command line System commands, AT modem commands and Unix command dd can be used. Database Forensic Tools used for database forensic are ACL, Idea and Arbutus as it is the forensic study of databases and their metadata. These tools record action in the documented form about the forensic expert on the database as he uses database contents, log files and in-RAM data. Still there is need to do research in this field to perform database forensic that demands skill experts. Conclusion The information provided in this article helps the reader with basic understanding of digital forensic and its branches with the aim to do further research in specific area of this field. Different Forensic methodologies are outlined in order to give the choice to forensic expert to choose this methodology or design his own process model. Further the different tools especially the open source one can enhance the forensic expert skills. Today the technology is advancing very rapidly and developing skills in multiple areas enhances the professional career and money value of the individual.

term paper :: essays research papers

Notes   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Interpersonal communication occurs within interpersonal relationships. Interpersonal relationship is the association of two people who are interdependent, they use consistent patterns of interaction, and who have interacted for a descended amount of time. There are two important interpersonal relationships, inclusion and control they both include involving others in the conversation. The difference is control is the ability to influence others, and inclusion is becoming involved with others (need for affection, or holding fond or tender feelings toward someone.) pg. 170 There is also symmetrical relationships with people mirror each other or are similar. There is a dark side to interpersonal relationships. Some may find that interpersonal relationships can be painful and negative. This includes obsession, fatal attraction, and jealousy. These can often cause abuse, sexual, physical, mental, and emotional. Also negative relationships include gossip, conflict, and codependency with can create harmful results to the relationship. Relational development is the process by which relationships grow. (important). There are five stages to interpersonal relationships; Initiating, experimenting, intensifying, integration, and bonding. Initiating is the beginning period of interaction. Experimenting is when two people have a clear understanding to find out more about each other. Intensifying involves active participation, mutual concern, and awareness of the developing relationship. Integrating is when people in the relationship start to mirror each others behavior. Bonding is the final stage when they commit to each other. Relational maintenance is very important because of the strategies that keep the relationship together. Massage characteristics can have many different meanings. Hurtful messages are messages that create emotional pain or upset, they can end the relationship. Deceptive communication is the practice of deliberately making someone believe things that are not true.

Cricket In Australia In The 1920s :: essays research papers fc

Cricket is a game now played all over the world. Back in the 1920s there were two main teams, Australia and England. The Ashes are a series of cricket test matches between Australia and England. The first Ashes test ever played was on March 15th 1877 in Australia. Since then Ashes tests between Australia and England have flourished numbering a series approximately every three years. The overall Ashes results are in favor of Australia, while since 1989 the Ashes series have all been won by Australia. The 1920’s Ashes saw a more even event with England winning two series, Australia three. Although Australia won 13 tests to England’s six with six draws all in England. The first Ashes series in Australia was in 1920-21. This series was dominated by Australia winning all five tests. This was the first English team to tour Australia since the war, but it was delayed by an outbreak of typhus on the passenger ship carrying the English team. Australia placed seven test debutants under the captaincy of Warwick Armstrong, and yet they seemed too experienced and too good for England. The team was; W. Armstrong, W. Bardsley, H. Collins, J Gregory, C. Kelleway, A. Mailey, G. McDonald, W. Oldfield, C. Pellew, J. Ryder and J. Taylor. The first test in Sydney never from the outlook looked like a two teamed race, rather a spectacle to see how much Australia could win by. Armstrong won his first of many tosses and decided to bat first, Australia making 267 on a pitch favoring the bowlers. England, on the second day crumbled being spun out for a feeble 190 and in reply Australia made 581, with centuries to Collins the opener and Armstrong the captain. This meant E ngland needed 658 on the last two days. Australia’s superior bowling attack dismissed England for 281, 377 short. The second test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground was no closer. Australia batted first and made 499 with centuries to Pellew and Gregory. Australia then bowled England out for 251 with inspirational Gregory taking 7/69. Enforcing the follow on, Australia’s bowlers took advantage of the mental state of England and bundled them out for 157 winning by an innings and 91 runs. The third test in Adelaide beginning on January 14 was by far the closest test. Australia winning the toss decided to bat for the third time in a row. On a ‘road like’ pitch Australia hit a comparatively feeble 354.

Acceptance: Chinese & American Born Perspectives in Poetry

Kelvin Yee 10/21/12 Skyline College English 110 Paper #2 Acceptance: Chinese & American Born Chinese Perspectives in Poetry The United States is a place where people can have diverging views on how to describe the diverse nation. The country in fact does not have an official language because of the myriad of distinct ethnicities residing within the country. With all this diversity it is only natural for people to struggle with which cultural norm to follow. Of the many immigrants that have journeyed to the U. S. or a better life, Chinese immigrants perhaps have been discriminated against the most because at one point they were considered an alien incapable of assimilating which lead to laws preventing their immigration and naturalization during our nation’s not too distant history. From a Chinese perspective, appearance is everything and by default that means acceptance as well. Chinese immigrants often will develop opposing personas since the United States is predominantly an individualistic society whereas Chinese society is predominantly a collectivist culture.This imbalance in values has caused some Asian-Americans to become baffled over how to discover their true identity. While achieving acceptance while balancing multiple identities is not an easy feat to accomplish, authors Kitty Tsui and Laureen Mar have used poetry in similar and dissimilar ways to support people who are endeavoring to navigate through diverse and conflicting identities, through their poems: A Chinese Banquet and My Mother; Who Came From China, Where She Never Saw Snow. Both authors are activists that use poetry as well as other literary mediums to reach a broader audience.Tsui was born in Hong Kong and she is a lesbian with a loving partner so she is very familiar with longing for acceptance since she is a minority within a minority. Mar is of Chinese descent born in the United States at a time when discrimination against Chinese and Asians in general was still vastly prevalen t throughout the nation. The two authors use their intellect to enlighten as many people as they are able to reach with their literary works. The protagonist in Tsui’s poem is arguably modeled after her where she is striving to be accepted for being gay by her family.The protagonist attempts to come out to her mother â€Å"but she will not listen, she shakes her head. † (Tsui 613) This avoidance can become very problematic due to the conflicting societal teachings and will only perpetuate the alienation. When there is disapproval in Chinese families often a distance will start to build as children and parents start alienating one another. This largely stems from Chinese children being taught not to question authority while Western society is teaching almost the exact opposite.The main character in Mar’s poem is a Chinese immigrant mother that succumbs to a cycle of monotonous despair without even realizing it. The mother appears to be content doing the same job day in and day out for relatively low wages as she has been sewing sleeves onto ski jackets over and over again for twenty four years. She must work to support her family and because â€Å"she earns money by each piece, on a good day, thirty dollars† (Mar 533), thirty dollars that could easily be ten if she slows the pace.Being an immigrant with limited knowledge of the English language, she is not left with many options in terms of rising above her socioeconomic class but she cannot afford to slow down to take English lessons. Like many immigrants the mother gets caught in a catch 22 and over time loses sight of the goal of providing a better future for her and her family after all, she could have stayed in China to do this job. Both poems emphasize the struggles that someone goes through while both being and feeling like an outsider which only illustrates how important it is to bring conflicting viewpoints into equilibrium.Tsui’s poem illustrates the narrator grappli ng with her own persona as well as the persona her family would like her to portray. In contrast the struggle in Mar’s poem is about the inner workings of the intricate interactions between society and the immigrant population in America. These issues are deeply philosophical as there are many cultural dimensions rooted within them. These two distinguished poets have gone to great lengths to not only alert us to mounting issues in our society but they give us a map to navigate these turbulent waters as well.The struggles presented in the poems are not merely that of being an outsider because they have a fervent underlying clash of cultures that exists within them. Take Tsui’s poem for example, she asserts that you should allow your individuality to shine through but at the same time be respectful of the differing societal views. The first evidence of this notion is established early on in her poem where the reader discovers the narrator’s individuality flourishi ng in the form of fashion because the reader is specifically informed that the narrator is dressed differently from the rest of the female attendees of the family function.The narrator could have easily chosen to cause a raucous or simply refuse to attend the family function because her partner was not welcome at the event. Instead of pursuing either of these two scenarios she attends and â€Å"[sucks] on shrimp and squab† (Tsui 613) minding her own business while daydreaming of acceptance. This decision is very significant because the narrator demonstrates that she is still able to be respectful of the traditions of her family and culture while still allowing her individuality to thrive as much as possible given the circumstances.Through all of this she is still very conscious of not only her perceived image but her family’s image as well. In contrast Mar’s poem proclaims that you should not go against tradition in the slightest bit, but instead encourages peop le to follow tradition with one key factor to keep in mind; do not overwork yourself until you lose sight of why you are working so hard in the first place. Chinese society places great value in a strong work ethic but the mother keeps working without questioning authority, also something Chinese society teaches, which can be viewed as either a positive or negative Chinese trait to have.The mother ends up being overworked with a seemingly low prospect of climbing to a higher socioeconomic class without even realizing the disparity in the working conditions compared to the typical working conditions of native born Americans. Mar points out that many immigrants get taken advantage of because they are unfamiliar with what is proper and what is downright unscrupulous in hopes of Chinese immigrants realizing that virtues that are prized in Chinese culture may become a point of exploitation in cultures with dissimilar values.Not only have these renowned poets given us instruments to aid u s as we traverse challenging obstacles in multicultural lives, but they have done it in such manner that a reader of the poem can’t help but marvel at how they have used certain literary tools to reiterate their point without creating a feeling of alienation. Throughout both poems, both poets have given us subtle clues that are not immediately apparent but after careful reflection provide the reader with a revelation about the society that we live in.Tsui’s use of repetition is meant to have the reader believe that the family function is fairly casual despite initial evidence to the contrary. Very early on the speaker in the poem uses an oxymoron stating that â€Å"it was not a very formal affair but all the women over twelve wore long gowns and a corsage, except for me. † (Tsui 612) Clearly the event itself was a formal affair; otherwise the women over twelve would not have been in long gowns with a corsage. They could have simply been in a casual dress or pant s for that matter. It was not a very formal affair† is repeated several times during the course of the poem in an attempt to create a feeling of casualness. This casualness is a key concept that is further developed by the lack of punctuation in the entirety of the poem. Making the poem have a casual atmosphere is yet another way to show respect while still inserting individuality because she is able to soothe a stressful topic. For traditional Chinese families having a gay child is a very serious matter.In general Chinese society value sons more than daughters because the sons will continue the family name and it is assumed that sons will care for the parents in their old age. Since multiple cultures are working against Tsui it is only natural that she would endeavor to frame the issue in a softened manner. She points this out as not only a remedy for coming out but also as a guide to manage any tense situation in which there is are significant disadvantages. Mar utilizes a l iterary device known as enjambment to aid in emphasizing the irony in her poem.By having her thoughts flow in a continuous manner the reader does not have an opportunity to immediately pick up on the irony since there is no break between her thoughts. This writing style allows suspense of the poet’s point to build up, creating an epiphany upon reflection of the poem at the end. This style of writing allows the author to blend thoughts together that individually would not be very substantial but when combined, form a very profound and thought provoking literary work.Had Mar chosen to use an alternate style of writing she would have likely had to delve much deeper in her selection of words in order to convey her point with such an impact. Most rational people regardless of their cultural background would choose to portray their mother in a positive light. The narrator of Mar’s poem describes her mother as having hair as â€Å"coarse and wiry, [and] black as burnt scrub. † (Mar 532) No one would intentionally depict their mother in such a horrible fashion unless there was something amiss however; the little details like this are not immediately processed with the enjambment.Further analysis reveals additional evidence to suggest something is irrational. All the Chinese dialects are tonal languages like most Asian languages. Due to the pronouncing of certain tones in many Chinese dialects, many Westerners have viewed some of the dialects as being harsh and abrasive when in fact from the perspective of a native speaker, the dialogue is nothing more than a normal conversation. Mar specifically choses to have the narrator, a native speaker, describe Toisan Wah, a Chinese dialect, as being harsh.Obviously this suggests that there is some dissatisfaction of the current situation just as the fact that the mother has immigrated to America for twenty four years, but the speaker in the poem specifically points out that English is the mother’s se cond language suggests additional discontent. After twenty four years it shouldn’t be necessary to explicitly communicate this detail despite being a fact. On the surface of these two poems a reader can get wealth of information to guide through balancing multiple diverging identities but it is perhaps after careful analysis that you can appreciate the true implications of the poems.Both Tsui and Mar are activists but being that they come from a Chinese cultural background, though slightly differing views, they know how to express their opinions without being overbearing. Chinese culture is a high-context society meaning that there is a lot of emphasis put on the meanings of not what is said but rather what is implied whether it is in the form of writing style or nonverbal cues during physical interactions. A considerable wealth of knowledge can be lost without delving deeper to read in between the lines of our intricately elaborate network of intertwined cultures.With global ization and acculturation happening at an increasingly unwavering rate, these two poets have prompted us to take heed not to lose sight of our culture, the very essence of our identities, in a robust but diplomatic approach to gain acceptance. Works Cited Mar, Laureen. â€Å"My Mother; Who Came from China, Where She Never Saw Snow. † Barnet, Sylvan, William Burto and William E. Cain. A Little Literature. New York: Longman, 2007. 532-533. Poem. Tsui, Kitty. â€Å"A Chinese Banquet. † Barnet, Sylvan, William Burto and William E. Cain. A Little Literature. New York: Longman, 2007. 612-614. Poem.

The Influence of Walt Disney Films Towards Adults and Children

A Walt Disney film production is well-known for its film reputation; magical, heart-warming and touching films that attracts not only children but also adults. The company makes animations that capture’s the audience heart and at the same time delivers a moral message to the audience. Cinderella (1950) is a successful Walt Disney film that appeals to different generations’ as it was a story on a happy and magical dream that many people have in reality.Cinderella, the character appealed to many young girls as the character portrayed a very kind, loving and pretty girl who was chosen by a handsome and charming young Prince. The Prince and Cinderella unite when her leg fits into a beautiful pair of glass shoe that she lost during the Prince’s ball. This story also appeals to young boys who are trying to find their true love just like the charming Prince. Apart from that, the song â€Å"A dream is a wish your heart makes,† gives hope to people from different b ackgrounds and different generations.In one part of the song lyrics, specifically â€Å"No matter how you heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true,† sends an important message that people should keep hoping and be positive in whatever dreams they have so that one day this dream will come true. The film ‘Cinderella’ is not only meant to explore the deepest and wildest imagination of the audience, but it also makes everyone’s dream come true on the screen; especially when the Prince and Cinderella lives happily ever after in the end. Therefore, this movie would never get old, not even for the future generation of youngsters.Anjelica Huston once said, â€Å" I want to be a princess like Cinderella and fit into the shoes that she fit in. It influences my later desire to become an actress. † It directly affects those who have watched Disney animations. Princess fairy tales are not meant just for memories and are not just a motion picture for entertainment, but also a tool that aids in a child’s development. Street (1995) has analyzed the excerpts from three different years of ethnographic study of literacy play in kindergarten classrooms’ and presented the findings in â€Å"Social Literacies: Critical Approaches to Literacy in Development, Ethnography and Education.†One of the findings was that little girls played with Disney Princess dolls and repeatedly enacted the associated film text; they rewrote plots they knew by heart and altered character roles that suited their version of their favorite Disney characters’. This could mean that Disney Princesses and animation films enhance the opportunity for children to practice their ability to write and read stories based on what they have heard from films’. It also encourages children to create their stories based on the fairy tales they have watched.In short, children could develop moral and social values ba sed on what they see from Disney movies. From the movie Cinderella, one can understand more about the animation movie making process, production and structure. It deeply links and influences the audience image on cartoon and animation movies. Although we live in the age of information technology, where most people are hooked to the internet or video games, a fairy tale like Cinderella still captures a majority of audience from different generations.

Reaching Adulthood: Completing Human Developmental Stages

The human development is a very complex yet fascinating part of our lives. We look back at the point we first remembered how young we were, the things we did that were so different from the things we do today. More often than not, we take for granted the stages where significant amount of changes that shaped us took place.Our infancy and pre-school years show much of our earlier attitudes and behaviors which became cemented as we grow older. Our environment played such a significant role in making us the way we are today. As I have mentioned in the first project, we understand our being a male or a female when we realize the roles and activities attached to one’s gender.Even our parents dictate how we should act or what toy to play and we get punished by disobeying them. And at this stage we develop a concept of what makes us happy or sad, we can adapt to our environment and we avoid doing things that would result to an unfavorable consequence.These things we undergo during ou r earlier years further have an effect on the next stage of our lives. What we liked to do, how well we can adapt to other people, how we behave or act upon exposure to a stimulus etc. continue in our middle childhood and adolescence years.The middle childhood prepares us for what we will face in our adolescence years, the same way our infancy and pre-school years prepared us for the later years.During our middle childhood and adolescence, we are thrust into a great deal of changes, whether mentally, physically, socially and emotionally. We like to be independent and to go out of the familial circle that surrounded us when we were young.In my experience, it was this time when I started making friends in school and in my neighborhood. I could also face other people who were not my age. This stage marks the awakening of cognitive and emotional aspects of one person. We learn to judge the people around us, to be curious of the things which we cannot easily understand, to feel different emotions that seemed so new.The countless and various experiences we undergo during this stage further hone, change, influence or impact the way we are. They make our personality unique, mold our behavior and attitudes and develop our skills. Everything we have learned we apply to our present lives.Our infancy and pre-school years show much of our earlier attitudes and behaviors which became cemented as we grow older. Our environment played such a significant role in making us the way we are today. As I have mentioned in the first project, we understand our being a male or a female when we realize the roles and activities attached to one’s gender.Even our parents dictate how we should act or what toy to play and we get punished by disobeying them. And at this stage we develop a concept of what makes us happy or sad, we can adapt to our environment and we avoid doing things that would result to an unfavorable consequence.These things we undergo during our earlier years furthe r have an effect on the next stage of our lives. What we liked to do, how well we can adapt to other people, how we behave or act upon exposure to a stimulus etc. continue in our middle childhood and adolescence years. The middle childhood prepares us for what we will face in our adolescence years, the same way our infancy and pre-school years prepared us for the later years.During our middle childhood and adolescence, we are thrust into a great deal of changes, whether mentally, physically, socially and emotionally. We like to be independent and to go out of the familial circle that surrounded us when we were young. In my experience, it was this time when I started making friends in school and in my neighborhood. I could also face other people who were not my age.This stage marks the awakening of cognitive and emotional aspects of one person. We learn to judge the people around us, to be curious of the things which we cannot easily understand, to feel different emotions that seemed so new and to try things which pique our curiosity.My interview’s particular experience shows this. He started using prohibited drugs during his adolescence. This kind of deed roots from many factors such as family problems, inferiority complex or social dilemma.Dale says that all of his family’s attention was on his younger sister, Mikaela. No matter how much good he does, his family doesn’t seem to notice. So what he did was involve himself in things that would get him into trouble, if only to get his parents’ attention.The countless and various experiences we undergo during this stage further hone, change, influence or impact the way we are. They make our personality unique, mold our behavior and attitudes and develop our skills. Everything we have learned we apply to our present lives.Changes and phenomenon in middle childhood, as noted in my first project, are stepping stones for the adolescence; changes and phenomenon in adolescence, as noted in my second project, are preparation for adulthood.AdulthoodAdulthood is a hazardous and difficult journey for many people to take, and not just a destination of security and safety that we reach once and for all. It is a reference point from which other life stages are judged.The experiences which became imprinted in our memories and the self beliefs and social standards that we have molded within ourselves affect us in our present actions and how we see ourselves. But, these beliefs and standards change when we are exposed to different stimuli or situation.At this stage, I can already foresee my own future, in what is called self-schema. These are the templates of our future, and they tell us what we can be after several years, what our career would be etc. Still, I ask myself, what will I be really in the next years?Since I would not be able to answer this question, I have interviewed Emelita Sacra, a 49-year-old single mother and currently taking over as line leader and quality cont rol officer in a garment corporation. She was separated from her husband, but she manages to raise her daughter well.Emelita used to dream of finishing just high school, since her family’s source of livelihood is barely enough for the 11 members of the family. She studied hard and eventually earned a scholarship, her ticket to college.But her dream faded when she chose to help her parents in meeting the family’s needs.   She was able to send two of her siblings to college, and that was enough for her even if she had sacrificed her own dream.This shows that what she desperately wanted before was put aside by the emergence of a more important situation. She said that though there were many events in her life which affected her, only few values and interests changed. Some of which were the earthly things she wanted before, such as clothes, cosmetics and leisure moments.But now, these things became unimportant because her daughter became her priority. Her situation now i s a far cry from her situation before. Now that her daughter is in college, she has to work hard and limit the luxuries of life. Every spare time was spent doing extra works to be able to provide for her only child.When she was a teenager, all that mattered was helping her family to earn money and send the children to school. Now, what matters is raising her daughter well and providing her education. This attitude is better explained by Jean Piaget’s generativity, wherein Emelita thinks of the future of her daughter instead of her own life.Emelita says that the values she learned from her younger years didn’t change much. As to the moral aspect, nothing changed, but some things were added. She instilled to her daughter the moral values her parents taught her.Basically, when we reach the adulthood stage, as I viewed my interviewee, there are changes in our self concept. For example, we might have low self efficacy before, which is our competence in accomplishing things. But because we have gone through many things, and we were able to endure the pains and dilemmas of life, we have increased our self efficacy considering the fact that we are older than before, we could handle and do things better now.Another example of self concept that had changed during our adulthood years is the self awareness. Adults tend to be more focused and are aware of their responsibilities at their age. For example, my interviewee became aware of her role as a mother and father solely to her daughter. Aside from that, she also became aware of her priorities in the present time compared before. At this point in life, most people have grown matured, as to how they should act, how they should be, and what they should do.Generally, lots of things have made their contribution to each of stages in life. Some factors that might affect each life stage are inherent and gene factor. Biologically speaking, this could really happen, such that our behavior and character could be attr ibuted to the innate potentials of ourselves.However, we could not deny the fact that the environment that we are living in has contributed big changes not only in our lives, but more specifically, in ourselves.Those external factors are the ones we experience during our infancy stage to childhood, then adolescence stage, and lastly adulthood stage. The events in our everyday lives have impacts such that, we are not aware that those events molded us into what are now, and what we are going to be in the near future.Thus, the human development is a very vicious path, if we are going to consider all the details. Yet, we could say that human development is like a metamorphose process of butterfly. The only difference is that, the butterfly would surely fly if it comes out from the pupae, but each of us has no assurance if we can soar high in our lives.REFERENCESBoeree, G. Personality Theories. (NO DATE). Erik Erikson, 1902 – 1994. Retrieved August   29, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/erikson.htmlJames, W. The Principles of Psychology. Retrieved August 29, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/Principles/prin10.htmLerner, R. Concepts and Theories of Human Development. Retrieved August 29, 2007 from the site of UAH Library on World Wide Web: http://libdblist.uah.edu/browse.php?list=P&source_id=17Myers, D. Exploring Social Psychology. 3rd ed. November 2003. McGraw-Hill Companies.