The Problem of Old Harjo by John M. Oskison Article

The Problem of Old Harjo by John M. Oskison - Article Example The new generation of Native writers themselves was just as critical of missionary efforts. In 1907 John M. Oskison's story â€Å"The Problem of Old Harjo† explored the dilemma of a well-intentioned Christian missionary who believes she can convert an elderly Native. The difficulty is that Old Harjo is happily married to two wives, and forcing him to renounce either one would be â€Å"cruel and useless.† Though Harjo fervently seeks church membership, the missionary is sensible enough to doubt that demanding a separation â€Å"would in the least advance morality amongst the tribe, but I'm certain that it would make three gentle people unhappy for the rest of their lives.† In this instance at least, when Indian custom and missionary certainty come into conflict, the missionary must back down.   The problem of having to choose between two wives and two sets of values is not unique to the rising class of freed slaves. Native Americans commonly had more than one wi fe; this presented a problem for Native Americans as they were converted to Christianity and expected to conform to the rules of American society. Although the government would not honor such a marriage, they were emotionally and economically binding for the spouses.   In â€Å"The Problem of Old Harjo,† John Oskison, another Native American, addresses this issue. Harjo, like Old White Bull, has two wives. While this is the tale of conflict between Christianity and native traditions, it still offers tremendous insight into the emotional bond of marriage, even when more than two people are involved. Oskison builds credibility for the institution by first portraying the missionaries as superficially religious but not concerned with Harjo’s well-being—they are representatives of a church of â€Å"scandalized missionaries† (Oskison 967). While the missionaries are sarcastic with one another and worry only about sin, ignorance, bigamy, and moral rehabilitati on, Harjo is sincere in his acceptance of Jesus (ironically, the only truly crucial part of the missionaries’ teachings) and is sincere in his love and responsibility for both of his wives.   

Financial Independence and the Single Woman Essay Example for Free

Financial Independence and the Single Woman Essay Most, if not all of Jane Austen’s renowned novels feature the trials and tribulations of single women—from Pride and Prejudice, to Sense and Sensibility, to Emma. The focus is specifically on the concept of marriage as the only viable choice for a single woman, if she wished to live substantially in her later years. However, while the subject of being wed to a suitable gentleman is present in Emma, the main character possesses a quality different from those in the other stories mentioned—Emma Woodhouse is financially stable. Therefore, this discussion of Austen’s Emma will be done through a different angle, which runs contrary to the author’s quote above. Matrimony in Emma is thoroughly explored and its nature as a solution for an unmarried woman’s future, yet it apparently does not apply to the story’s protagonist. Further arguments will expose the same logic as it is perceived today—after all, Austen wrote most of her work during the mid- to late 19th century. II. Emma Woodhouse and Matchmaking The penchant of the title character for matching her women friends with possible grooms composes the running narrative of the story. Because of a previous success, Emma decides to do the same for her friend Harriet Smith, an innocent but socially-inept young woman. Emma pours all of her efforts in setting Harriet up with the pompous Mr. Elton, and cut all possibilities of Harriet’s consideration of a marriage proposal she had received from Mr. Martin, a young farmer. Eventually, after many plot twists and turns and appearances of more characters, her plans backfire as the arrogant Elton reveals his true desire for Emma, and not for Harriet. Harriet happily ends up with Martin, and Emma admits to her own affections for her longtime friend Mr. Knightley. It is obvious that Emma’s obsession with matchmaking does not cover merely attraction; she chose Mr. Elton for Harriet mainly because of his financial stability, being the local vicar. Compared to the income of a regular farmer, a vicar would ensure a better life for Harriet. Clearly, the era’s societal norms and economic potential for women are at play, for woman were generally not entitled to many occupational choices; the most common would be as a family teacher or governess, both which are not financially rewarding. But the biggest bane of women then was the possibility of being single until they reach an age unacceptable for marriage—which would be around the mid-20s. For Emma, born into a wealthy family and allowed to make her own decisions, the best way to make sure her less fortunate women friends would have good lives ahead would be to marry a rich man. This is not explicitly implied in the story, as Emma’s designs were disguised as just a bored, rich girl’s newest hobby. However, in analyzing her own conditions as well as her initial rejection of the poor Mr. Martin for Harriet, it is obvious that she subscribes to the concept of marriage being the only solution for women other than herself.

Things Fall Apart: An Analysis :: essays research papers

Things Fall Apart: An Analysis The culture of the Umuofia society before the colonial infiltration, may be hard to understand but we are forced by Achebe to realize it has traditions and customs that make it work. Although, looking at it from our Judaeo-Christian point of view we may be appalled by some of their practices. We also have to realize that they have strengths. Things Fall apart is the idea of balance and interdependence, earth and sky, individual and community, man and woman or different perspectives on the same situation. The central image of this balance is contained in the Ibo concept of "chi," which occurs throughout the novel. A persons "chi" is their destiny, his inner self, "you wouldn't challenge your "chi" to a wrestling match," as did Okonkwo when he assisted in the killing of Ikemefuna, whom he loved and who called him father. Okonkwo sins not only against the earth goddess, protector of family relations, but also against his inner most feelings or his "chi." Any bad luck that occurs, people of this culture would say that you have a bad "chi." Okonkwo's destiny is marked by bad luck, one reason may be that he is so driven by the fear of resembling his father that he struggles to repress part of his personality with predictably afflicted results. This was a society where a man was judged by his own achievement and not that of his fathers. Yams were the primary crop of Umuofia. A sign of manliness was if you could farm yams to feed your family. Okonkwo is respected because of his hard work. The complex patterns of Umuofia's economic and social customs materialize throughout this novel as we see Okonkwo compelled to rid himself of any similarities that his father had. Unoka had no titles, was lazy and when he died was greatly in debt. Some may wonder how a society like the Ibo's functioned, how they enforce

Organization’s Cost and Profitability and Performance Indicators Essay

The emergence of the internet and other information technology has been hailed by the business world as one of the drivers of growth and profitability. It revolutionized the relationships between businesses and their customers; between and among businesses; and between customers, too. Implementing e-business, however, is not easily implemented. Apart from the monetary costs, there are also integration and transition issues that an organization needs to face. Quan (2008) argues that in spite of the heavy investment in e-business activities and platforms, there is no conclusive proof that demonstrates significant returns from e-business. When profitability is measured, leaders demonstrated success. In terms of cost measurement, however, they did not. I agree with Quan that too many executives and IT practitioners have joined the bandwagon of e-business because of success stories of some internet businesses. It is easier to join the bandwagon and duplicate what other organizations have done than to take a look at one’s own situation and peculiarities to really determine, which approach would work. If this were followed, the impact of e-business would have been more salient. In my own experience, the integration of information technology and e-business framework has mixed results. It helped the way that the business connects with its customers and clients. In terms of customer relationship management and the way that the business manages its inventory and its communication needs. The investment on e-business is significant. The business has to employ additional individuals so as to manage the elements of e-business and spend on additional equipment and gadgets that could make the system work. The returns on this investment, however, cannot be felt right away. There are several areas of business operations rendered more efficiently such as reporting, accessing information, savings on materials such as paper that are no longer used extensively. In the short run, e-business platforms and elements tend to be more on the cost side of the business. For managers, this is a rather alarming situation. Profitability is of course the ultimate goal of any business. Yet, e-business tends to be unprofitable in the short run. Quan agrees with such an observation. To maximize the impact of e-business profitability, the timeline of the implementation should be clear and there should be clear guidelines as to the implementation of the project. In our case, we managed the expectations of stakeholders by informing them of the process that the organization will go through while e-business platform is being integrated into the system. Managers and organizations, in general, should be able to manage expectations as to the situation of e-business integration. Yet, management should not be afraid to take risks because of the benefits that e-business could bring to the organization as a whole. Several months might not be enough to see the results of e-business integration. Yet, if the organization will really follow through on its investment, the results will be seen in due time. The challenge, however, is planning and mapping out these results. With deft management and effective communication within and without the organization, e-business will succeed and become integrated into the operations of the business in the long run.

Can Tourism Be Sustainable En the 21st Century

CAN TOURISM BE SUSTAINABLE IN THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY  ? Tourism industry is one of the largest industry of the world in the 21st century, before the oil industry and the automobile industry. It is a vital sector for a lot of countries as it generates jobs and wealth. Nevertheless, Tourism can also engender environmental, social, and cultural degradations as more and more people travel all around the world. There was roughly 935 million of tourists in 2010, and there will be 1. 6 billion tourists in 2020 according to the World Tourism Organization.This enormous flow of tourists has undoubtedly a lot of impacts on the environment, on the local populations or on the economy. Furthermore, the global population is increasingly growing and the question of resources available is crucial and has become a matter of global concern when development occurs in a time of globalization. Because tourism keeps increasing, this is necessary to find ways to make tourism more sustainable. The questi on of sustainable development has become a major issue of the 21st century notably due to the climate change.While the original call for sustainable development in Bruntland Report (which goal was to unite countries to pursue sustainable development together) discussed the application of the principles, tourism was not specially discussed’ (Hall, 1998) Yet, there has been an increasing recognition of the role that tourism could play in sustainable development. As it is a driving force of the economy and a powerful instrument of development, it has a role to play to limit its negative impacts whether they are cultural, environmental or economic.That is to say, adopting the principles of sustainable development to tourism. ‘Sustainable tourism is an extension of the concept of sustainable development† (J. Swarbrooke, 1999). The sustainable development is defined in the Bruntland Report as’ a development which meets our needs today without compromising the abi lity of people in the future to meet their needs’. Therefore, sustainable tourism also deals with long-term viability. The goal of sustainable tourism is to conserve natural heritage and biodiversity, so the future generations will enjoy the environmental resources.It also has to respect the cultural heritage and traditional values of host communities and enable them to benefit from the advantages created by tourism, to make an equal distribution of benefits from tourism possible. The challenges are to reconcile tourism and respect of the environmental, economic and social dimensions to minimize the socioeconomic negative externalities of tourism. So can tourism be sustainable in the twenty-first century? I Successful initiativesSustainable tourism is a complex notion which is part of a global system and cannot be tackled in isolation specifically, economically or temporally (Munt2003), it requires the implementation of different measures and initiatives. We can achieve susta inable tourism if different actors are aware of the situation and ready to take measures in order to improve things. Several summits and codes of conduct carried out show the growing interest in sustainable tourism and efforts made to achieve it. Rio Summit in 1992 ,The Global Code of Ethics for tourism or AGENDA 21 for the Travel & Tourism Industry Towards Environmentally Sustainable Development†¦) They give recommendations on the application of sustainable development to tourism. The support and cooperation of the private and public sector are required to make sustainable tourism possible. All relevant stakeholders have to work in partnership to develop a common sustainable tourism strategy (Hall, 1998). All actors involved in the process have to participate for each level: local, regional, national.As tourism is part of a global system, sustainability has to be achieved in all sectors because they are interdependent. (Hall, 1998) â€Å"Since the 198Os, there has been a grow ing interest in the ethical standards of businesses. Public and political pressure has been growing for companies to behave more ethically in relation to a range of issues† (J. Swarbrooke, 1999) For instance, the ‘Club Med’, a French corporation of vacation set a charter of sustainable tourism to guarantee environmentally friendly practices and to take part to the local economic development in an ethical manner.To address the negative impacts of tourism, new alternatives to mass tourism are developed such as green tourism or ecotourism which is a responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people† (International Ecotourism Society, 1990) Besides some successful measures are taken to limit touristic flow. For instance to see orang utans in parks in Tanzania, visitors have to pay a high price: 235 pounds which enable to control the stream of travellers. Moreover, money generated by tourism will help t o preserve parks as it is invested in the parks for the preservation of the orangs utans .II Yet even some successful initiatives exist, some progress remain to be made First, more and more operators are using those terms ‘sustainable tourism’ as a new trend. It is a way to differentiate themselves from competitors with only commercial motivations. (Munt, 1998) Sustainable tourism has to adapt to each environment’ as each locality is totally different in terms of geography, ecosystem, social structure and economy, it is unlikely that the carrying capacity will be the same in any two places, so its application in any place is very different to forecast’. J. Swarbrooke, 1999) Besides, when an action is implemented it is not easy to judge if it is really sustainable. An action can be judged sustainable or not after a long period of time when it is proved that the development of the activity ‘has not prejudiced the needs of what were future generations w hen the development began ‘(Hall, 1998) The majority of commentators agree on the fact that intervention is needed to achieve sustainable tourism .Nevertheless, public sector regulation is not easy in a time when there is a lot if privatization We generally oppose mass tourism to some alternative forms of tourism. For example, ecotourism is not necessarily more sustainable if ecotourism â€Å"grows to a mass scale† it will show all the characteristics of mass tourism. (J. Swarbrooke, 1999) â€Å" We have seen that a partnership is required to achieve sustainable tourism but the tourism industry and local communities can have conflicting requirements.And the host communities are usually not enough strong to make their voice heard compared to the power of the tourism industry. The Maldives is representative of both positive and negative impacts engendered by tourism. Tourism accounts for 30 % of the Maldives GDP. Every tourist products an average of 7. 7 pounds of waste each day. With the development of the tourism, the government has decided to sacrifice one of the island and to make it the bin of the archipelago. The island grows of a square meter per day.For tourists, the rubbish remains invisible. Pollution is becoming worst and everyday the seabed is altered. Ships unload 3OO tons of rubbish everyday, which are dumped on the floor with no waste sorting. There are some toxic waste material which pollute the sea but also endanger the life of dustmen. Sustainable tourism is a complex task because key concepts are interrelated, it is about stakeholders whose interests have to be balanced. To lead to great social, economic and environmental benefits, sustainable tourism is required.A tourism bad managed can have negative consequences and have a prejudicial effect or even destructive on the social and environmental dimensions. And the complete set of impacts has to be measured at a global scale or we cannot hope to achieve complete sustainability at anything less than this scale† (Hall, 1998) Furthermore, to be truly sustainable, tourism has to pay more attention to the social dimension because we usually focus more on the environmental dimension. Touristic activities have to contribute towards the economic development and improves the quality of life of local populations.Tourism creates some negative impacts, but the role of the sustainable tourism is to try to limit them. So that the consequences tourism has on biodiversity, natural resources or the amount of waste keep acceptable. Maybe â€Å"truly sustainable tourism can probably never be achieved but it remains an ideal that we must thrive to attain† (Hall, 1998) BIBLIOGRAPHY Books C. Michael Hall & Allan A. Lew, 1998, Sustainable Tourism a Geographical Perspective, Pearson, Essex M. Mowforth & I.Munt, 2003, Tourism and Sustainability, Routledge, London W. Peter ,H. Rob, G. Tonny, , 2002, Sustainable Tourism a Global Perspective, Elvesier Butterworth-Heineman n, Italy J. Swarbrooke, 2005, Sustainable Tourism Management, Cabi Publishing, Cambridge Web site † http://www. unep. fr/scp/tourism/sustain/ http://www. alpesolidaires. org/tourisme-solidaire-la-rencontre-avant-tout http://www. globalsustainabletourism. com/Events/48-2012-World-Tourism-Day-WTD-Tourism-and-Sustainable-Energy-Powering-Sustainable-Development. html

A Comma (or Its Absence) Can Change a Sentences Message

A Comma (or Its Absence) Can Change a Sentences Message A Comma (or Its Absence) Can Change a Sentence’s Message A Comma (or Its Absence) Can Change a Sentence’s Message By Mark Nichol Writers are divided in opinion about punctuating introductory words or phrases- and often, they are at war with themselves with the topic. Even adherents of open punctuation will generally insert a comma after an adverb, whether it is transitional, like however, or descriptive, like suddenly, and will follow even a brief modifying phrase such as â€Å"according to the study† or â€Å"contrary to popular belief† with pausing punctuation. But somewhere in between- in the case of a short opening phrase like â€Å"last year† or â€Å"in retrospect†- many people believe a comma setting the phrase off from the sentence’s main clause is unnecessary. For consistency, I advocate generally using a comma regardless of the phrase’s length, but even though I am a close-punctuation adherent, I realize there are exceptions. Consider the use of please, for example. Read this sentence: â€Å"Please sit down.† Now, read this one. â€Å"Please, sit down.† Did you read them differently? I hope so. The intent behind each statement is distinct: â€Å"Please sit down† is an imperative barely tempered by a courtesy term; the person to whom the statement is delivered is expected to comply. By contrast, â€Å"Please, sit down† is an entreaty; the speaker sincerely hopes that the other person will accept the invitation. There’s a difference, too, between â€Å"Of course you would say whatever you thought I wanted to hear† and â€Å"Of course, you would say whatever you thought I wanted to hear.† The first sentence is delivered with some heat; the speaker’s tone is wounded and derisive. The second statement, by contrast, is more measured and reflective. These examples are more subtle than when one decides whether one should punctuate, for example, â€Å"In time you will understand why I acted as I did†: You either agree with me that if one is to punctuate a more extensive introductory phrase (â€Å"When you have time to reflect, you will understand why I acted as I did†)- and most writers will choose to do so- it’s only logical to treat a more concise opening phrase the same way (otherwise, where does one draw the line?), or you don’t agree. But sometimes, what a sentence communicates changes with the mere insertion or omission of a comma, and the writer should be sensitive to such nuances to help the reader read between the lines. Todays video: Calls to Action Pluralizing Compound Nouns Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:4 Types of Gerunds and Gerund PhrasesYay, Hooray, Woo-hoo and Other AcclamationsEnglish Grammar 101: Sentences, Clauses and Phrases

American Civil War - Battle of Oak Grove

American Civil War - Battle of Oak Grove Battle of Oak Grove - Conflict Date: The Battle of Oak Grove was fought June 25, 1862, during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Armies Commanders: Union Major General George B. McClellan3 brigades Confederate General Robert E. Lee1 division Battle of Oak Grove - Background: After constructing the Army of the Potomac in the summer and fall of 1861, Major General George B. McClellan commenced planning his offensive against Richmond for the following spring.   To take the Confederate capital, he intended to sail his men down the Chesapeake Bay to the Union base at Fortress Monroe.   Concentrating there, the army would advance up the Peninsula between the York and James Rivers to Richmond.   This shift south would permit him to bypass Confederate forces in northern Virginia and would allow US Navy warships move up both rivers to protect his flanks and help supply the army.   This part of the operation was shelved in early March 1862 when the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia struck Union naval forces at the Battle of Hampton Roads. Though the danger posed by Virginia was offset by the arrival of the ironclad USS Monitor, efforts to blockade the Confederate warship drew off Union naval strength.   Slowing marching up the Peninsula in April, McClellan was fooled by Confederate forces into laying siege to Yorktown for much of the month.   Finally continuing the advance in early May, Union forces clashed with the Confederates at Williamsburg before driving on Richmond.   As the army neared the city, McClellan was struck by General Joseph E. Johnston at Seven Pines on May 31. Though the fighting was inconclusive, it resulted in Johnston being severely wounded and command of the Confederate army ultimately passed to General Robert E. Lee. For the next few weeks, McClellan remained inactive in front of Richmond allowing Lee to improve the citys defenses and plan a counterattack. Battle of Oak Grove - Plans: Assessing the situation, Lee realized that McClellan was forced to divide his army north and south of Chickahominy River in order to protect his supply lines back to White House, VA on the Pamunkey River.   As a result, he devised an offensive that sought to defeat one wing of the Union army before the other could move to provide aid.   Shifting troops into place, Lee intended to attack on June 26.   Alerted that Major General Thomas Stonewall Jacksons command would soon reinforce Lee and that enemy offensive action was likely, McClellan sought to retain the initiative by striking west towards Old Tavern.   Taking the heights in the area would permit his siege guns to strike at Richmond.   To accomplish this mission, McClellan planned to attack along the Richmond York Railroad in the north and at Oak Grove in the south. Battle of Oak Grove - III Corps Advances: The execution of the assault at Oak Grove fell to the divisions of Brigadier Generals Joseph Hooker and Philip Kearny from Brigadier General Samuel P. Heintzelmans III Corps.   From these commands, the brigades of Brigadier Generals Daniel Sickles,  Cuvier Grover, and John C. Robinson were to leave their earthworks, pass through a small but dense wooded area, and then strike the Confederate lines held by the division of Brigadier General Benjamin Huger.   Direct command of the forces involved fell to Heintzelman as McClellan preferred to coordinate the action by telegraph from his headquarters in the rear.   At 8:30 AM, the three Union brigades commenced their advance.   While Grover and Robinsons brigades encountered few problems, Sickles men had trouble clearing the abatis in front of their lines and then were slowed by the difficult terrain at the headwaters of White Oak Swamp (Map). Battle of Oak Grove - A Stalemate Ensues:               Sickles issues led to the brigade falling out of alignment with those to the south.   Recognizing an opportunity, Huger directed Brigadier General Ambrose Wright to advance with his brigade and mount a counterattack against Grover.   Approaching the enemy, one of his Georgia regiments caused confusion among Grovers men as they wore red Zouave uniforms which were thought to only be used by some Union troops.   As Wrights men halted Grover, Sickles brigade was repulsed by Brigadier General Robert Ransoms men to the north.   With his attack stalling, Heintzelman requested reinforcements from McClellan and informed the army commander of the situation.    Unaware of the specifics of the fighting, McClellan ordered those engaged to withdraw back to their lines at 10:30 AM and departed his headquarters to inspect the battlefield personally.   Arriving around 1:00 PM, he found the situation better than anticipated and ordered Heintzelman to renew the attack.   Union troops moved forward and regained some ground but became entangled in an inconclusive fire fight that lasted until nightfall.   In the course of the battle, McClellans men only managed to advance about 600 yards. Battle of Oak Grove - Aftermath: McClellans final offensive effort against Richmond, the fighting at the Battle of Oak Grove saw Union forces suffer 68 killed, 503 wounded, and 55 missing while Huger incurred  66 killed, 362 wounded, and 13 missing.   Undeterred by the Union thrust, Lee moved forward with his planned offensive the next day.   Attacking at Beaver Dam Creek, his men were ultimately turned back.   A day later, they succeeded in dislodging Union troops at Gaines Mill.   Beginning with Oak Grove, a week of constant fighting, dubbed the Seven Days Battles, saw McClellan driven back to the James River at Malvern Hill and his campaign against Richmond defeated.       Selected Sources Civil War Trust: Seven Days BattlesCWSAC Battle Summaries: Oak GroveHistory of War: Battle of Oak Grove

Using Similes and Metaphors to Enrich Writing (Part 1)

Using Similes and Metaphors to Enrich Writing (Part 1) Consider these two sentences from Leonard Gardners novel Fat City: The stooped forms inched in an uneven line, like a wave, across the onion field.Occasionally there was a gust of wind, and he was engulfed by sudden rustling and flickering shadows as a high spiral of onion skins fluttered about him like a swarm of butterflies. Each of these sentences contains a simile: that is, a comparison (usually introduced by like or as) between two things that are generally not alikesuch as a line of migrant workers and a wave, or onion skins and a swarm of butterflies. Writers use similes to explain things, to express emotion, and to make their writing more vivid and entertaining. Discovering fresh similes to use in your own writing also means discovering new ways to look at your subjects. Metaphors also offer figurative comparisons, but these are implied rather than introduced by like or as. See if you can identify the implied comparisons in these two sentences: The farm was crouched on a bleak hillside, where its fields, fanged in flints, dropped steeply to the village of Howling a mile away.(Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm)Time rushes toward us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation.(Tennessee Williams, The Rose Tattoo) The first sentence uses the metaphor of a beast crouched and fanged in flints to describe the farm and the fields. In the second sentence, time is compared to a doctor attending a doomed patient. Similes and metaphors are often used in descriptive writing to create vivid sight and sound images, as in these two sentences: Over my head the clouds thicken, then crack and split like a roar of cannonballs tumbling down a marble staircase; their bellies opentoo late to run now!and suddenly the rain comes down.(Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire)The seabirds glide down to the waterstub-winged cargo planesland awkwardly, taxi with fluttering wings and stamping paddle feet, then dive.(Franklin Russell, A Madness of Nature) The first sentence above contains both a simile (a roar like that of cannonballs) and a metaphor (their bellies open) in its dramatization of a thunderstorm. The second sentence uses the metaphor of stub-winged cargo planes to describe the movements of the seabirds. In both cases, the figurative comparisons offer the reader a fresh and interesting way of looking at the thing being described. As essayist Joseph Addison observed three centuries ago, A noble metaphor, when it is placed to an advantage, casts a kind of glory round it, and darts a luster through a whole sentence   (The Spectator, July 8, 1712).   NEXT: Using Similes and Metaphors to Enrich Our Writing (Part 2).

Prostate Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Prostate - Essay Example The rectal assessment discloses an expanded prostate with an irregular shape, tenderness, and bogginess. Clinical presentation is used to diagnose acute prostatitis. Urine analysis and culture is used to test for uropathogens. Patients suffering from acute prostatitis and possess other risk elements such as chronic renal failure, and diabetes are more at risk for prostatic abscess (Resnick & Thompson, 2000). Treatment in acute prostatitis includes antimicrobial treatment combined with drainage through the urethra by transurethral resection of the prostate, through the rectum by aspiration and perineaum by aspiration (Shoskes, 2008). I agree that Benign prostatic hyperplasia is an illness where there is unusual expanding of the prostate gland. The risk elements in this condition include dietary aspects, alcohol, metabolic syndrome, sexual activity, age and presence of flowing androgens (Bachmann & Rosette, 2012). The signs and symptoms consist of incomplete voiding, straining to void, frequent urination, nocturia, problem in beginning urine stream and dribbling. According to the American Urological Association, the diagnosis includes a blood test, bladder test, measuring post-void residual volume, cystoscopy, ultrasound and urodynamic pressure (Urology Care Foundation, Inc. 2014). Treatment of benign prostatic hypertrophy includes ÃŽ ±1adrenoceptor antagonists for signs related to obstruction of the lower urinary tract. In this particular case, the doxazosin is most suitable (Kirby, McConnell, Fitzpatrick, Roehrborn, Wyllie & Boyle, 2005). The other drugs that are appropriate are 5-alpha reductase inhibitor, com bination medications, alpha blockers and phosphodiesteras-5 inhibitors (NIH Publication, 2014). I agree that Prostate cancer is the most killer disease in men. The risk aspects comprise of environmental and genetic factors. Some risk factors cannot be managed for example family history of prostate

Service Experience Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Service Experience Report - Essay Example In fact, employees showed a negative at attitude towards customers like us, which is evident from the details posted in my blog 1. They tried to discriminate us from other customers. On the other hand, the manger was an understandable person who knows the importance of treating all customers equally well for the development of the business. He tried to settle the issues rather than complicating it. Thus, the manager’s behavior generated a good impression of the hotel in our minds. Moreover, the manager had shown high levels of maturity and responsiveness while attending our problems and settling it (Shiqi: Service Industries Marketing Blog 1) Reflection on second service encounter My second experience Palazzo Versace Hotel, in Gold coast is also generated mixed feeling about the customer services in hospitality industry. I encountered the best and worst customers’ service experience from this hotel at the same time. Check is has been taken more than half an hour which s hould be avoided to satisfy the visiting customers. The person who is charge of the check in operation was getting lot of phone calls and hence the customers forced to wait for a substantial period of time to find out their rooms. However, customer service after the check in process was satisfactory and outstanding. In short, the reception at the entry level was poor whereas the rest of the services were excellent. The receptionist and the welcome staff in this hotel need more training and empowerment. However, the rest of the services were outstanding (Shiqi: Service Industries Marketing Blog 2) Report: Customer servicing is the most important thing in any business in the modern era and the hospitality business is not an exception. Marketing activities in the service industry in the past concentrated mainly on the canvassing of customers at any cost. In order to attract customers to the hotels and restaurants, marketing executives provided fake offers and attractions to the custome rs. They concentrated more on attracting the customer rather than servicing the customer. They thought that their job is only to lead the customers towards their hotel or restaurant and the rest of the jobs should be look after by others. Modern customers are particular about the service they receive from hotels and restaurants. The reflections given at the top of this report clearly indicate the problems in customer servicing in service industries. This report analyses the critical service points/theme in the service encounters that are informed by services marketing theory and concepts, based on the above reflections. My analysis and evaluation of critical service points/theme in the service encounters that are informed by services marketing theory and concepts All the employees in a service organization should work for the betterment of the organization rather than the betterment of their careers alone. Even if a visiting customer experiences hundreds of good service from a hotel , one bad experience may prevent him from visiting that hotel again. In other words, all the employees should work collectively for the improvement of customer servicing. Responsiveness of the employees paly vital role in the success and failure of service organizations. Pleasant attitude, timely servicing, and helping mentality of the employees encourage customers to revisit the same hotel or restaurant regularly. It should be noted that the employees and

What makes a Food Organic Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

What makes a Food Organic - Article Example If a product is labeled â€Å"organic†, it means that a government-approved certifier has approved the food. This certifier has inspected where the food came from to ensure that the food is in fact organic. Organic foods are foods that are produced without pesticides, bacteria, fertilizers containing synthetic ingredients or chemicals, herbicides, antibiotics, bioengineering, hormones, and ionizing radiation. This paper intends to discuss how food is made organic. The most important thing is to convert the agricultural land to organic status. This is done on a much larger scale. Land conversion may take two to three years to convert the status of the land from infertile to fertile. â€Å"They will also look to ensure that the entire surrounding areas and systems maintain its biodiversity and sustainability† (BiofuelsWatch.com, 2012, para.3). The crop or produce that shows up in the first year is not organic, and that produced in the second year is still in the conversio n phase (Foerstel Design, 2012). Fully organic food is produced in the third year, when the land has fully turned into its organic status. So, the nature completes its course while producing organic food. Organic farming not only reduced the production costs but also helps sustain the environment. The produce, which includes vegetables, fruits, and livestock, is very much closer to the natural organic state. Hence, the most important step in making the food organic is organic farming, whose important factors are soil and natural fertility of the land. At small level, pots can also be used with potting soil, to produce a wide variety of vegetables and fruits (BiofuelsWatch.com, 2012). Potting soil is free of fertilizers and is handled very simply. Personal compost heaps can be used in the potting soil for the plants, which may include banana peels, which act as a very good fertilizer due to high content of potassium. Crushed mint leaves and camphor can be used as insect repellents fo r home grown plants, because these things expel pungent vapors that repel the insects, thus saving the plants. In order to save water, rain water can be conserved and saved in specially designed devices. Farmers can repot the plants with nutrient rich organic soil. Repotting is beneficial because it helps the plants to develop useful soil microorganisms and sustaining roots. Hence, home grown food is organic in nature since it is grown in soil which is free of fertilizers, and is grown in the most natural environment and by the most natural means ever possible. After production, there are manifold steps that producers go through to make sure that the organic food meets the standards of the consumers and is of high quality. Organic farmers make sure that the production is never sprayed with chemicals, insect repellents, synthetic hormones, and other synthetic sprays, so that the quality remains at its highest level. The livestock food chain is saved from synthetic hormones and antibi otic injections. Organic farmers use renewable sources to conserve soil and water, thus maintaining the organic state of the land and environment. This helps ensure that the quality of the organic food remains high year after year. Cover crops keep insects away, saving the organic produce from harmful effects of the environment. Animal manure and compost are used to feed the soil and the produce, which ensures the renewability of resources. However, according to Insel, Turner, and Ross (2009, p.609), it is important for the organic farmers to properly manage the animal manure while feeding the soil, so that it does not contaminate the water, soil and crops to affect the overall quality. Hence, organic farming needs proper management

Factors and criteria of choice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Factors and criteria of choice - Essay Example It has happened in 14 years that the mobile phone giant Nokia is not toping the annual cell phone sales chart, whereas it is Samsung which has replaced Nokia and has become the world’s number one mobile phone selling brand in the world (LAM). The technology advances on everyday basis. New features are added everyday in mobile phones to make them more attractive. The total revenue generate annually by the mobile company is $100 billion. However the profitably of the mobile phones companies depend on their ability to develop more innovative product, with offering higher quality and affordability to the consumers. This research paper highlights the features that the mobile phones need, in order to maintain their present and future position in the mobile phone market. Explanation The advancements in technology have helped in the development of several significant and useful features in the mobile phones. These features provided by the mobile phone companies’ help in deciding that which phones will occupy the market share. The mobile phone tour guide present in some of the phones help people in finding a place. This can be a useful feature for tourist who visits other places. This phone technology is more appropriate than the paper guide. Near field communication technology allows the mobile phone to connect to other wireless device present at some distance and transfer data, which ranges from pictures and songs to payment and other important information. Phones embedded with NFC chips can be used as electronic identity cards or debit cards. The phones with NFC chips can be quite effective in futures. The NFC devices manufactures must work in collaboration with VISA to come up with technology that would make life easier for customers. Mobiles programmed to allow users to download different application are the one that users prefer the most. These application may consist of Skype which allow users to make call to other people having Skype application in their phones, present anywhere in the world. The phones supporting downloadable application also support large amount of data as the size of the application can be as large as 550 KB (Sen). Camera is the key factor that costumers consider while purchasing a mobile phone. Phone with the ability of capturing pictures; occupy almost 40 percent of the market share. However the camera feature of mobile phone is not enough for customers. They want camera with high definition and several other features that are present in advance digital cameras. The mobile market is now saturated with camera phones, people nowadays prefer to have a picture capturing device in their pockets. The other significant feature that people prefer in camera phones include 3G network. This advance form of network s upport the highly advance feature of mobile phones providing more storage to the customers. The 3G networks not only allow the users to captures memorable moments but it also allow users to share it with their family and friends. Other important characteristics of the 3G networks includes the transmission of data at 38 K bps, improving image quality up to 330,000 pixels and it allows the internal storage of mobile phone to grow so that the users can save a dozen photos at a single time (Garside and Arthur). The major complaints that are faced by the telephone companies are mostly related

M3A2 Methods Speech or Presentation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

M3A2 Methods - Speech or Presentation Example Standard scores also offer room to analysts to convert scores from different data sets into scores that can be accurately compared to each other. A good scenario of where to use the z-score especially in the business environment is to measure the bankruptcy probability of a company. Say you are a statistician and you are given a mandate to check whether a company (may be a manufacturing or any other service) is either at a risk of corporate collapse or is at higher level of liquidity and earnings, which can be interpreted as having a smaller probability of bankruptcy. In this case, you need to check or determine signs of company bankruptcy. As an analyst you will have to look at various possible factors 9financial ratios) affecting the stability of a company. This may include; It is important to understand that these factors are unique from each other and have different story about the firm’s financial status. It can be a bit confusing to compare them. However, it becomes very easy to compare the different scores using z-score. In this case, when z-score value

Factors and criteria of choice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Factors and criteria of choice - Essay Example It has happened in 14 years that the mobile phone giant Nokia is not toping the annual cell phone sales chart, whereas it is Samsung which has replaced Nokia and has become the world’s number one mobile phone selling brand in the world (LAM). The technology advances on everyday basis. New features are added everyday in mobile phones to make them more attractive. The total revenue generate annually by the mobile company is $100 billion. However the profitably of the mobile phones companies depend on their ability to develop more innovative product, with offering higher quality and affordability to the consumers. This research paper highlights the features that the mobile phones need, in order to maintain their present and future position in the mobile phone market. Explanation The advancements in technology have helped in the development of several significant and useful features in the mobile phones. These features provided by the mobile phone companies’ help in deciding that which phones will occupy the market share. The mobile phone tour guide present in some of the phones help people in finding a place. This can be a useful feature for tourist who visits other places. This phone technology is more appropriate than the paper guide. Near field communication technology allows the mobile phone to connect to other wireless device present at some distance and transfer data, which ranges from pictures and songs to payment and other important information. Phones embedded with NFC chips can be used as electronic identity cards or debit cards. The phones with NFC chips can be quite effective in futures. The NFC devices manufactures must work in collaboration with VISA to come up with technology that would make life easier for customers. Mobiles programmed to allow users to download different application are the one that users prefer the most. These application may consist of Skype which allow users to make call to other people having Skype application in their phones, present anywhere in the world. The phones supporting downloadable application also support large amount of data as the size of the application can be as large as 550 KB (Sen). Camera is the key factor that costumers consider while purchasing a mobile phone. Phone with the ability of capturing pictures; occupy almost 40 percent of the market share. However the camera feature of mobile phone is not enough for customers. They want camera with high definition and several other features that are present in advance digital cameras. The mobile market is now saturated with camera phones, people nowadays prefer to have a picture capturing device in their pockets. The other significant feature that people prefer in camera phones include 3G network. This advance form of network s upport the highly advance feature of mobile phones providing more storage to the customers. The 3G networks not only allow the users to captures memorable moments but it also allow users to share it with their family and friends. Other important characteristics of the 3G networks includes the transmission of data at 38 K bps, improving image quality up to 330,000 pixels and it allows the internal storage of mobile phone to grow so that the users can save a dozen photos at a single time (Garside and Arthur). The major complaints that are faced by the telephone companies are mostly related

Creative Writing, Application Essays Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Creative Writing, Application Essays - Essay Example These are some of the reasons why I would like to attend George Washington University. An education organization that has been providing a service to the community for 188 years is a place with the tradition and experience that I seek from a university campus. I follow basketball and have been a fan of the school’s basketball team for the last five years. I have heard good things about the quality of the education this school provides. My counselor recommended this school to me. I already knew the about the university through its sporting program, but never realized about the possibility of becoming a student. The school website was informative an allowed to learn about many aspects of what the college experience entails. I like the fact the schools place a lot of importance in community service and volunteer work. I would like to get involve in these types of extracurricular activities that can enhance my interpersonal skills and personal development as a human being. I like the fact the schools enabled students to keep up with the current news and alumni affairs through its very informative website. The school’s internet portal was a great tool that provided me with a good overview of what George Washington University can do for my future. I like the campus facilities, security, and medical center capabilities. It is important to go to a college where you feel safe and welcomed. In order to be able to be effective in one’s study routines a person need to be in an environment where you feel like at home. When I visited the University last summer I felt like this a place where I wanted to be the next four years of my life. A college education is an investment that lasts a lifetime. Attending a great college institution such as George Washington University will help my professional future by opening many job opportunities for me in the future. I

Elizabeth Gaskell and Industrialization Essay Example for Free

Elizabeth Gaskell and Industrialization Essay Two of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novels—North and South and Mary Barton—provide a critical insight into the author’s attempt at probing the issues surrounding industrialization in Victorian England. Apart from the fact that both novels feature female characters as protagonists, they also highlight the classic struggle between rich and poor classes in the face of an emerging industrial society. Without losing track of the flow of the stories’ plots, Gaskell is able to incorporate the vital aspects of industrialization. In North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell writes about the struggles of the urban working class in industrial England, specifically in its northern regions, during the 19th century in contrast to the lifestyles of those who live in the wealthier south. Because the story is shown from the perspective of the heroine, Margaret Hale, Gaskell is able to display the other side of the stereotypes attributed to women during the 19th century. For the most part, women at that time were barely able to face their personal circumstances and address them on their own. Margaret Hale, however, defies the notion that women largely depend on men just to live. She initially resists that belief by rejecting romantic proposals—a move that shows how she is in control of her life—and displays it at its highest when she throws her arms around John Thornton in an effort to protect him from the angry mob. The latter indicates that it is not always women who seek the protection of men because women can also protect men even at the expense of such women. As Patsy Stoneman indicates in her book Elizabeth Gaskell, â€Å"[Margaret Hale] confronts the fact that men of all classes are governed, in the public sphere, by a masculine code,† a code that effectively prevents the characteristic of tenderness attributed to females (Stoneman, p. 86). Margaret’s willingness to protect Thornton does not only imbibe the thought that women are tender and should not be harmed. It also presents the idea that women—especially those who are considered outsiders to industrial areas such as Milton—can also learn to sympathize with the people who are working under poverty. The incident in the story where the workers were in a strike against Thornton, the local mill owner, also underlines the idea that an outsider can relate to the woes and conditions of the workers more than those who are directly involved in the industrial system. Another interesting aspect of Gaskell’s thematic exploration of industrialization in North and South is how she was able to reunite, in a manner of speaking, the classes considered as polar opposites. As Dorice Williams Elliott observes in her article: â€Å"the novel bases its case for women’s mediation between classes on an analogy between marriage and class cooperation† (Elliott, p. 25). The presence of the outsider, Margaret, in the industrial town makes it possible for the marriage between the classes to commence. Margaret became no less than a person who paved the way for the better understanding between the rich and poor divide although her presence alone did not entirely dissolve the prevalent disparity. Elliott’s observation that Margaret’s mediation led to class cooperation simply reaffirms the idea that ‘class cooperation† in itself still presumes differences between social classes. In Mary Barton, the disparities between the rich and the poor classes take the shape of the story of a father who seeks to protect his daughter from becoming a fallen woman. Like Margaret Hale in North and South, the story revolves around the life and struggles of Mary Barton in Victorian England. John Barton, Mary’s father, is a millworker who lost most of the members of his family except Mary. One interesting part of the story is when John shot Henry Carson, the son of a rich mill owner. Being someone who deeply questions the wealth disparities between rich and poor—largely because he was â€Å"chairman at many a Trade’s Union meeting; a friend of delegates,† someone who was â€Å"ambitious of being a delegate himself† and a â€Å"Chartist† who was â€Å"ready to do anything for his order† (Gaskell, p. 25)—John’s murder of Henry symbolizes how the members of the poor class sometimes grow desperate. The story is ingenious in the sense that it perfectly subsumes the issues surrounding industrialization in Victorian England into the tale of a woman’s quest for love. Mary Barton is a classic example of how Gaskell effectively writes about the problems caused by industrialization in Victorian England without losing sight of the story’s plot. Despite the debates as to whether Gaskell’s novels genuinely reflect the true nature of the Victorian English society during the onset of the industrial period, it should be reminded that what her novels do is to give a fictional account of the problems people face when dealing with people from another social class. Susan Morgan writes that â€Å"the criterion of likelihood is an inappropriate approach to Gaskell’s work† (Morgan, p. 44). For example, â€Å"it may have well been unlikely in Manchester for relations between worker and employer to find solutions through individual friendships† (Morgan, p. 44). Whatever reasons there may be as to why Gaskell wrote as she did, it is enough to note that North and South and Mary Barton capture the struggles of fictional characters in the face of industrialization. The novels may be fiction at best, yet the circumstance they suggests—the epic divide between rich and poor—remains as real today as it once was. Works Cited Elliott, Dorice Williams. â€Å"The Female Visitor and the Marriage of Classes in Gaskell’s North and South. † Nineteenth-Century Literature 49. 1 (1994): 21-49. Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn. Mary Barton. Ed. Shirley Foster. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Morgan, Susan. â€Å"Gaskell’s Heroines and the Power of Time. † Pacific Coast Philology 18. 1/2 (1983): 43-51. Stoneman, Patsy. Elizabeth Gaskell. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.

Relationship Between Earnings and the Chinese Stock Market

Relationship Between Earnings and the Chinese Stock Market Abstract In this paper, some factors are examined which are associated with equity value in an immature and emerging market, China. In the developed countries, research has indicated that both earnings and book value are playing an important role in forecasting equity value. While in China, earnings seems to have information content but earnings, by itself, seems to be weakening in importance over time. Book value has a more significant association with equity values. In the risky and unstable environment of China, where future expected earnings is quite uncertain, investors may not be pay much attention to earnings, but be more concerned for the book value. Regarding the role of book value, there are competing explanations. While some researchers conclude that book value was only important because of its contribution as a control for scale differences (Barth and Kallapur, 1996), others conclude that the important role book value played because it was a useful proxy for expected future normal earnings (Ohlson, 1995). Still others conclude that it is only relevant in the valuation of loss making and unsuccessful companies generally (Berger, Ofek and Swary 1996; Burgstahler and Dichev, 1997). The result of this paper indicates that, overall, earnings and book values are two important determents for pricing stock in China. Furthermore, this study indicates that book value is also important in an unstable economic environment and immature stock market, like China, which is still in early stage of capital market. 1 Introduction 1.1 Brief history In the mature market, empirical research finds that earnings and book value can be used to predict firm value. In particular, researchers have examined the association between earnings, book value, and a combination of both with stock prices and have found it to be significant (Ball and Brown 1968; Ball 1972; Kaplan and Roll, 1972; Collins and Kothari 1989; Burgstahler and Dichev, 1997). In an important paper referred as a landmark work, Ohlson (1995), in a famous paper, modeled this association and provided a widely used framework for empirical exploration. Burgstahler and Dichev (1997), a significant study in this area, indicated that equity value is an option style combination of recursion value and adaptation value. Recursion value (see Burgstahler and Dichev, 1997) is capitalized expected earnings when the firm recursively applies its current business technology to its resources. Adaptation value means the value of the firm’s resources adapted to alternative use. Current earnings are used as a proxy for recursion value and book value of equity is used as a proxy for adaptation value. While earnings provide a measure of how the firm’s resources are used currently, book value provides a measure of the value of the firm’s resources independent of how the resources are used currently. They note that, in particular, when the ratio of earnings to book value is high, earnings is the more important factor than book value of equity value. This is because under such a condition the firm is more likely to continue using resources in its current way. In contrary, when the ratio of earnings to book value is low, book value becomes the more important factor than earnings in equity valuation. Under this alternative condition, the firm is more likely to exercise the option to adapt its resources to a better alternative use. 1.2 Objectives In this dissertation, I will focus on the association between earnings and book value with stock prices in the Chinese stock market. Analysis of the Chinese market presents the potential for obtaining insights into stock pricing in an emerging or immature market. While some arguments could be made that certain aspects, for example, political and economic consequences of joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), make the Chinese market unique. In general, however, it should be noted that the Chinese market is still very reflective of developing (emerging) markets. Los and Yu (2008) classify China as an emerging market because of its low per capita income, chronic inflation, thin and immature capital markets, and concentrated financial and industrial sectors; criteria that they use to characterize emerging markets generally. Although the two Chinese Stock Exchange, the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SHSE) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE), were founded in December, 1990. The Chinese stock market is considered one of the highest growing emerging markets. But it is still small relative to the stock markets in developed countries. As Han et al. (2006) note, potential inefficiency and volatility also characterize the Chinese market. In the market, the buying and selling activity of a few large investors can make great effect to the stock prices. China is experiencing a highly economic transition and on the path to become an important and irreplaceable part of economic integration all over the world at present. Therefore, it is interesting to examine if the association of earnings, book value with stock prices which is applied to the larger and more efficient market will still hold in an immature (developing) stock market, like China. The objective of this dissertation is to examine the relationships between recursion value (earnings), adaptation value (book value) and equity value in an emerging stock market. The results of this dissertation will show that earnings is associated with stock price significantly for successful and middle-of-the-road companies; while, book value is associated with stock price significantly for unsuccessful companies. This may indicate that the â€Å"recursion value† portion of a company’s equity value is relatively of greater importance in equity valuation than â€Å"adaptation value† for successful (high earnings) companies, whereas the â€Å"adaptation value† portion of a company’s equity value is relatively of greater importance in equity valuation than â€Å"recursion value† for unsuccessful (low earnings) companies. 1.3 Economic and stock market characteristics of China This dissertation will examine the potential factors that cause the variation of stock prices in different conditions. Therefore, it is imperative to understand the economic and institutional influence behind such differences and the characteristics of Chinese stock market. In this section, I summarize the history of the Chinese stock market. China’s economy has changed from a centrally-planned economy (CPE), which was introduced in 1949, to a more market orientated economy  since 1978. China’s economic transition has been accompanied by a great social achievement since the late 1970s. However, there were some inherent deficiencies of the CPE, like the defective functioning of the planning mechanism, the monopolistic, non-contestable position of the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), the lack of adequate incentives, the lack of financial sanctions, the macro-economic, suboptimal allocation of resources (Gao, 2006 ). During the last three decades, China’s great successful economic transition has been accompanied by huge and complex social change, with an officially reported GDP growth rate of 9.5 percent per year since 1980 (Lindbeck, 2008). The growth rate of China’s economic has been among the highest in the world, especially since 1990. And China is a significant participant in the global economy currently. One of the most important developments was the reactivation of the stock market. To strengthen the operating performance and release the capital shortage experienced by SOEs, China has been promoting a market economy through corporatizing (i.e. privatizing) SOEs and developing securities markets. The origin of stock market in post-1949 mainland China can be traced to July 1984, when Beijing Tianqiao Department store was converted into a shareholding company. In August 1984, the Shanghai municipal government approved the first principle-level regulation on securities. The first stock was subsequently issued by a household electronics company in November 1984 and traded in August 1986 on the OTC market. In the next few years, more SOEs were â€Å"incorporated† by the selling of shares to their employees, other stock companies and other SOEs. The stock market, however, didn’t become a significant vehicle for SOE reform until the establishment of the two stock exchanges. In the early 1990s, the SHSE and the SZSE established, in December 1990 and in July 1991 respectively. In the following year, the Chinese Security Regulatory Commission (CSRC) was set up, as the Chinese equivalent of Securities and the Exchange Commission in the United States, to monitor and regulat e the stock market. Since then, the stock market has grown in a high speed, expanded rapidly and facilitated the reform of SOEs (Haw et al, 1999). In 1991, there were only 13 stocks listed and traded on these two exchanges (eight on SHSE and five on SZSE). By the first quarter of 2009, the number of firms listed had increased to 1625 (864 on SHSE and 761 on SZSE). (Gao, 2009) The total market capitalization of listed firms increased about 1522-fold over the 18-year period, from 11billion reminbi in 1991 (equivalent to about US$1.3 billion) to 12056.6 billion renminbi (equivalent to about US$1773 billion) in 2008 (Table 1). As of 24 April 2009, the total market capitalization was valued as 16742.768 billion renminbi (equivalent to about US$ 2462 billion) (Haw et al., 1999). 2 Literature review In this section, I initially discuss studies that examine the relationship between equity value and earnings and the relationship between equity values and book values respectively; then I examine the association of earnings and book values with equity values; finally I will focus on studies that have examined data from the Chinese stock market. 2.1 Studies examining association of earnings with equity value Generally speaking, much of the research in this area for the last 30 years was focused on inspecting the relationship between certain variables and equity values or stock price. In a seminal study, Ball and Brown (1968) found a positive and statistically significant association between earnings and equity value. An empirical evaluation of accounting income figures required for agreement as to what real-world results constituted a useful appropriate test. Because net income was a figure of particular interest to investors, the result they used as the standard forecast was the investment decision making as it was reflected in security prices. Since usefulness could be reduced by deficiencies in either of the content or the timing of existing annual net income numbers, both of them would be evaluated. The developments of capital theory at that time provided more choices to the price of security as an operational test of the usefulness of business. Impressive Institutions to support the idea of the theory that the capital market are both effective and fair, if the information is useful in forming capital asset prices, then the market in asset prices will be quickly adjusted to the information without leaving any opportunity for further abnormal gain. As the evidence indicates, if stock price do in fact really quickly adapt to the new information and then changes in stock prices will reflect the information market. As observed revision of stock prices and income report published would provide the evidence that the information reflected in the income figures are useful. Ball and Brown’s method of accounting on income to stock price was based on the theory and evidence by focusing on the unique information which is to a specific company. Specifically, Ball and Brown built two alternative models of what was the market expected income to be, and then investigated the error when the expected market response. 2.1.1  Expected and unexpected income changes According to Ball and Brown (1968), the income of enterprises in America tends to move together over the time. It has been demonstrated that about half of change in the level of average earnings per share (EPS) of a firm could be influenced by the whole economic environment. At least part of the change in the company’s income from one year to the next could be expected. In the past years, if a company’s revenue had been associated with other companies in a particular way, then understanding that relationship of the past, together with the understanding of the income of those other companies, had a particular expected rate of return at present. Therefore, in addition to confirm the impact of new information can have a similar equivalent to the differences between real change in income and expectations of income. But not all of these differences must be new information.  A number of changes in income were due to financing and other policy decisions made by the firm. Ball and Brown assumed that, to a first approximation, these changes were reflected in average change in income through time. Since the influence of the two components of change were felt at the same time, that is, economy wide and policy effects, the relationship must be estimated jointly. 2.1.2  The market reaction It had also been demonstrated that stock prices move together with the rate of return from holding stocks. The whole market return was influenced by the information released by all enterprises. (Ball and Brown, 1968) Since they were assessing report of income as it related to each company, its content and timing should be evaluated relative to the changes in the rate of return on the firms stocks net of whole market effects. 2.1.3  Some economic issues An assumption for Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) income regression model was that the average income of firm j in the market (Mj) and the unexpected income change were uncorrelated. Correlation between them could take at least two forms, which contained the firm in the market index of income (Mj) and the industry effects at that time. The first had been eliminated by construction (denoted by the y-subscript on M), but it had not been adjusted due to the impact of the industry at that time. It had been estimated that the impact of industry might account for only 10 percent of the variability of the income in a company. For this reason the model had been adopted as appropriate specifications, to believe that any bias in the estimates would not be very significant. However, as the statistical efficiency inspection on the model, Ball and Brown also presented results for another naà ¯ve model, which predicted that the income would be the same as last year. The forecast error (i.e. unexpected income change) was only changes in income since the previous year. As was the case with the income regression model, stock returns model contained a number of apparent violations of OLS assumptions. The return of market index was relevant to the residual because the market index contained the return for firm j, and because the industry impacts. Neither violation was serious, because the â€Å"Combination Investment Performance Index† of Fisher (Fisher, 1966) was calculated over all stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange (hence stock returns was only a small portion of the index), and also because the industry impacts accounted for up to 10 percent (Brealey, 1968) of the changes in the rate of return on the average stock. Again, any bias had little effect on the results, because there is in no case was the stock return regression that was fitted over 100 observations (Fama, et al., 1967). Therefore, Ball and Brown (1968) assumed that it was impossible that no useful information about a particular firm reflected the rate of return during a period, but only the market-wide information that fitted for all firms. By abstracting market impacts, they identified the impact of information fitted to individual firms. Then, in order to determine whether part of the effect could be associated with information contained in the numbers of accounting income of a firm, they separated the expected and unexpected changes in income. If the income forecast error was negative, that was, if the actual change in income was less than its conditional expectation, they defined it as a bad news and predicted that if there was some relationship between accounting income numbers and stock prices, and then releases of the income figures would lead to the return on that firm’s stock, which was less than what would have been originally expected. The results from the empirical test of Ball and Brown showed that the information contained in the annual income figures were useful, as it related to stock prices. Beaver, Clark, and Wright (1979) found similar results and confirmed the initial findings of Ball and Brown (1968). Subsequent studies (Barth, Beaver, Landsman, 1992; Collins Kothari, 1989) found similar results again. The research of Lipe (1990) found that the relationship between earnings and equity value changes with the persistence of earnings. This study found that the equity value during a period is a function of (1) the time-series persistence of the earnings series, (2) the interest rate used in discounting expected future earnings, and (3) the relative ability of earnings versus alternative information to predict future earnings. The comparative statistics of Lipe (1990) showed that the response coefficient played an increasingly important role for past earnings to predict future earnings and an increasing function of persistence. In addition, the movements of stock price changed conditionally on earnings being announced was a decreasing effect of the predictability of the earnings series and an increasing effect of earnings persistence. If the predictability or response-coefficient effect was positive, that was because the value attached to a one-dollar current-period earnings shock was an increasing effect of predictability; if the predictability or variance-of-price-changes effect was negative, that was because the average quantity of unexpected information released during the period was a decreasing effect of predictability. Other studies refined the earlier studies by disintegrating earnings into components and then empirically testing the association between these components and equity values (Lipe, 1986; Wilson, 1986). 2.2 Studies examining association of book values with equity values A great number of studies focus on the balance sheet measures of assets and liabilities. These studies find a statistically significant relationship between book values and equity values of the firm (Penman, 1992; Barth Kallapur, 1996; Ohison, 1995; Berger, Ofek, Swary, 1996; Burgstahler Dichev, 1997). Book values of the firm’s assets and liabilities are used in these studies, which reinforce the assumption that measures of assets and liabilities reflect the expected results of future activities. However, some different conclusions are arrived at by the studies regarding the importance of book value. Barth and Kallapur (1996) stated that book value was important only because it acted as a control for size differences. Penman (1992) and Ohlson (1995) concluded that book value is important because it also acted as a proxy for earnings. Still others offer a competing explanation. Berger et al. (1996) reported that there is a positive and highly significant relation between market value and estimated liquidation value after controlling for present value of expected cash flow. Further assurance that correlated omitted variables do not affect the results is provided by the fact that the positive relation between market values and liquidation value changes in holding as well as levels. Berger et al. (1996) stated that the abandonment option was equal to an American put option on a paying dividend stock. Their analysis of this option results in the forecasting about how liquidation value influences firm value. All the other equality, the abandonment option leads to firms with a much bigger number of liquidation values being worth more investors. Therefore, they predict that market value is positively associated with liquidation value, after controlling for the relationship between market value and the present value of expected cash flow. Generally speaking, liquidation value for going concerns is not observable. Moreover, they concern more about the association between balance sheet information and the abandonment option’s value. They, therefore, estimate the relation between book value and liquidation value for major asset classes by choosing and analyzing the discontinued options footnotes of 157 sufficiently-detailed information firms. They find that one-dollar book value produces, 72 cents of liquidation value for receivables on average. Applying these estimates to the balance sheet disclosures of all the firms used as samples provides them with estimated liquidation values. In the empirical results, they report that after controlling for the option’s exercise price, the market value of a firm’s equity increases in a close approximation one for one with increases in the present value of after-interest cash flows. The significant positive estimate on the excess liquidation value movements continues to support the inference that the abandonment option makes a more important and significant contribution to the market value of a firm’s equity than that made by the present value of cash flow. To investigate the change over time in the association between abandonment option value and liquidation value, and to solve that problem that the pooled observations may not be independent, because it includes the same firm for many years. The results of their further research continue to show a positive, strong relation between the estimated liquidation value and the market value of the firm’s equity. Moreover, to further reduction of the concern that the inferences may be influenced by the liquidation value measure capturing a portion of true present value of cash flow that is omitted from their proxy, they perform an analysis in changes. At the same time, the sample contains all first differences of the firms from the levels analysis that meet sample selection restrictions. Berger et al. (1996) require that the first earnings prediction occur no later than the fourth month after the date liquidation value is calculated, which make sure that the changes in liquidation value and present value of cash flow are aligned properly in time for each firm in the sample. The change of percentage in equity value is for the purpose that captures the impact of operational decisions, not the impact of insurances and redemptions. So they delete the firms with insurances and retirements. The results for the changes is as expected, the fact that the latter estimate is significantly positive supports strong evidence, however, that the association they documented earlier between equity value and liquidation value was not affected by liquidation value and the present value of cash flow that both measure different part of true present value of cash flow. The constant component of any association between liquidation value and the omitted part of true present value of cash flow is removed by examining changes rather than levels. Therefore, Berger et al. continue to find the strong, positive association liquidation value and equity value of a firm. Berger et al. (1996) and Burgstahler and Dichev (1997) concluded that book value has relatively more significant association with stock prices when a firm is unsuccessful and making losses. They argued that this was because book value acted as a proxy for the â€Å"abandonment option†. 2.3 Studies examining association of earnings and book values with equity values Some studies observe the association between earnings and book values with equity values. Bernard (1995) tested several valuation models empirically. He found that book value per share accounted for 55% of the cross sectional variability in price per share; that book value and rank of return on equity accounted for 64% of the variation in equity price; and that estimated earnings and book values accounted for 68% of the variation in equity prices. Ohlson (1995) did not focus on earnings alone; theoretically, he modeled the role of earnings, book value and dividends in the valuation of a firm’s equity. An important combined function to the statement of changes in owner’s equity is allocated by accounting method. The statement includes the bottom-line items in the balance sheet and income statement, book value and earnings, and its format needs the change in book value to equal earnings minus dividends. This relation is referred as the clean surplus relationship because all changes in assets and liabilities which are unrelated to dividends must pass though the income statement. Generally, this scheme is accepted by accounting theory without connecting it to a user’s perspective on accounting data. While the underlying idea that net stocks of value settle with the creation and distribution of value produces a basic question in an equity valuation context: whether one can create a cohesive theory of a firm’s value that depends on the clean surplus relation to identify a distinct role for each of the three variables: earnings, book value and dividends. Ohlson (1995) resolves the question in a neoclassical framework. In this case, the analysis starts from the assumption that value is equal to the present value of expected dividends (Rubinstein, 1976). Then one can assume the clean surplus relation to replace dividends with earnings and book values in the formula of present value. At the same time, a multiple-date, uncertain model such that earnings and book value act as complementary value indicators is led to by assumption on the stochastic behavior of the accounting data, In a specific way, the main point of the valuation function expresses value as a weighted average of (i) capitalized earnings at present (adjusted for dividends) and (ii) book value at present. Extreme parameterizations of the model produce either capitalized earnings or book value at presents the only value indicators. Ohlson (1991) have examined both of the settings. At its most primary level, he accordingly generalizes prior analysis to derive a convex combination of a pure flow model of value and a pure stock model of value. The combination is an interesting conception because both the bottom-line items are brought into valuation through the clean additional relation. The development of model, in which Ohlson (1995) produces the value of a firm as linear additive functions of both earnings and book value, shows the relevance of abnormal or residual earnings as a variable that drives a company’s value. Earnings minus a charge for the use of capital define this accounting-based performance measure as measured by book value that is in the beginning of period multiplied by the cost of capital. Abnormal or residual earnings hold on the difference market and book values, that is to say, they bear the goodwill of a company. As a matter of fact, a particular parsimonious expression for goodwill is derived from a straight forward two step procedure as it relates to abnormal or residual earnings. Firstly, following Peasnell (1981) and others, the clean surplus relation indicates that goodwill is equal to the present value of future expected abnormal or residual earnings. Secondly, if one further assumes that abnormal or residual earnings comply with an autoregressive process, then it follows that goodwill is equal to abnormal or residual earnings at present scaled by a positive constant. The results emphasize that value can be driven by assuming abnormal or residual earnings processes that make no reference to past or future expected dividends. Not only does owners’ equity accounting subsume the clean surplus relation, it also indicates that dividends reduce book value but leave earnings at present unaffected. This additional feature is exploited to examine the margin effects of dividends on value and on the evolution of accounting data (Modigliani, 1958; Miller, 1961). Market value is displaced by dividends on a dollar for dollar basis, so that dividend payment irrelevancy applies. In addition to that, dividends that paid today impact expected future earnings negatively. The creation of wealth is separated by the model accordingly from the distribution of wealth. On the important condition that one generally attaches to Modigliani and Miller (1958, 1961) properties in valuation analysis, the economic significance of owners’ equity accounting is enhanced by the requirement that dividends reduce book value but not current earnings. The model allows information beyond earnings, book value and dividends. The additional information is motivated by the idea that expected future earnings are affected by some relevant value events as opposed to current earnings, that is to say, accounting measurements incorporate some relevant value events only after a time delay. The feature is interesting because the analysis implies that the weighted average of capitalized earnings and book value still support the main point of the valuation function, though the accounting data will be incomplete indicators of value. Ohlson (1995) made a conclusion that, earnings at present might have a strong relation with market value of equity while current dividends are more important than future earnings in predictive ability. He made the theoretical framework for further empirical explorations. In a further refinement of Ohlson (1995), Burgstahler and Dichev (1997) showed that earnings and book values are positively and significant associated with equity values. However, they found that the relationship was nonlinear (i.e., moderated by factors such as success of a firm) and not additive as suggested by Ohlson (1995). In 1997, the research of theirs developed an option- style model of equity value that incorporated the capitalized value of the firm’s expected earnings (under the assumption that the firm continues its current way of employing resources) but also explicitly recognized the value of firms adaption option (i.e. the value of the option converted the firm’s resources to alternative, more productive uses). The main forecasting of the model is that the value of equity is a convex function of both expected earnings and book value. Their empirical evidence strongly supported the prediction of convexity – the coefficient on earnings increased with the ratio of earnings to book value and the coefficient on book value decreased with the ratio of earnings to book value. They developed two propositions for the relationship of recursion (a proxy of earnings) and adaptation value (a proxy of book value of equity) components with market value. In the model below, an option-style combination of recursion value and adaptation value are reflected in the equity value. Recursion value is capitalized expected earnings when the company recursively applies its business technology at present to its resources. Adaptation value is the value of the company’s resources which adapted to an alternative use. The possibility that the company will exercise the option to conform the resources to another way to use is reflected in the relative weights on the two factors of market value of equity. In a specific way, when the recursion value is not high relative to the adaptation value, the company will opt out of recursion value in favor of adaptation value. Two propositions are led to by the shape of valuation function in each argument. The model is as follows: MV (E, AV)EAV There are four basic terms in the model. MV represents market value of equity; E represents expected future earnings which use the company’s business technology at present; c represents capitalization factor for earnings; AV represents adaptation value. E and AV are random variables. The joint distribution of the two variables is described by the multivariate no Relationship Between Earnings and the Chinese Stock Market Relationship Between Earnings and the Chinese Stock Market Abstract In this paper, some factors are examined which are associated with equity value in an immature and emerging market, China. In the developed countries, research has indicated that both earnings and book value are playing an important role in forecasting equity value. While in China, earnings seems to have information content but earnings, by itself, seems to be weakening in importance over time. Book value has a more significant association with equity values. In the risky and unstable environment of China, where future expected earnings is quite uncertain, investors may not be pay much attention to earnings, but be more concerned for the book value. Regarding the role of book value, there are competing explanations. While some researchers conclude that book value was only important because of its contribution as a control for scale differences (Barth and Kallapur, 1996), others conclude that the important role book value played because it was a useful proxy for expected future normal earnings (Ohlson, 1995). Still others conclude that it is only relevant in the valuation of loss making and unsuccessful companies generally (Berger, Ofek and Swary 1996; Burgstahler and Dichev, 1997). The result of this paper indicates that, overall, earnings and book values are two important determents for pricing stock in China. Furthermore, this study indicates that book value is also important in an unstable economic environment and immature stock market, like China, which is still in early stage of capital market. 1 Introduction 1.1 Brief history In the mature market, empirical research finds that earnings and book value can be used to predict firm value. In particular, researchers have examined the association between earnings, book value, and a combination of both with stock prices and have found it to be significant (Ball and Brown 1968; Ball 1972; Kaplan and Roll, 1972; Collins and Kothari 1989; Burgstahler and Dichev, 1997). In an important paper referred as a landmark work, Ohlson (1995), in a famous paper, modeled this association and provided a widely used framework for empirical exploration. Burgstahler and Dichev (1997), a significant study in this area, indicated that equity value is an option style combination of recursion value and adaptation value. Recursion value (see Burgstahler and Dichev, 1997) is capitalized expected earnings when the firm recursively applies its current business technology to its resources. Adaptation value means the value of the firm’s resources adapted to alternative use. Current earnings are used as a proxy for recursion value and book value of equity is used as a proxy for adaptation value. While earnings provide a measure of how the firm’s resources are used currently, book value provides a measure of the value of the firm’s resources independent of how the resources are used currently. They note that, in particular, when the ratio of earnings to book value is high, earnings is the more important factor than book value of equity value. This is because under such a condition the firm is more likely to continue using resources in its current way. In contrary, when the ratio of earnings to book value is low, book value becomes the more important factor than earnings in equity valuation. Under this alternative condition, the firm is more likely to exercise the option to adapt its resources to a better alternative use. 1.2 Objectives In this dissertation, I will focus on the association between earnings and book value with stock prices in the Chinese stock market. Analysis of the Chinese market presents the potential for obtaining insights into stock pricing in an emerging or immature market. While some arguments could be made that certain aspects, for example, political and economic consequences of joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), make the Chinese market unique. In general, however, it should be noted that the Chinese market is still very reflective of developing (emerging) markets. Los and Yu (2008) classify China as an emerging market because of its low per capita income, chronic inflation, thin and immature capital markets, and concentrated financial and industrial sectors; criteria that they use to characterize emerging markets generally. Although the two Chinese Stock Exchange, the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SHSE) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE), were founded in December, 1990. The Chinese stock market is considered one of the highest growing emerging markets. But it is still small relative to the stock markets in developed countries. As Han et al. (2006) note, potential inefficiency and volatility also characterize the Chinese market. In the market, the buying and selling activity of a few large investors can make great effect to the stock prices. China is experiencing a highly economic transition and on the path to become an important and irreplaceable part of economic integration all over the world at present. Therefore, it is interesting to examine if the association of earnings, book value with stock prices which is applied to the larger and more efficient market will still hold in an immature (developing) stock market, like China. The objective of this dissertation is to examine the relationships between recursion value (earnings), adaptation value (book value) and equity value in an emerging stock market. The results of this dissertation will show that earnings is associated with stock price significantly for successful and middle-of-the-road companies; while, book value is associated with stock price significantly for unsuccessful companies. This may indicate that the â€Å"recursion value† portion of a company’s equity value is relatively of greater importance in equity valuation than â€Å"adaptation value† for successful (high earnings) companies, whereas the â€Å"adaptation value† portion of a company’s equity value is relatively of greater importance in equity valuation than â€Å"recursion value† for unsuccessful (low earnings) companies. 1.3 Economic and stock market characteristics of China This dissertation will examine the potential factors that cause the variation of stock prices in different conditions. Therefore, it is imperative to understand the economic and institutional influence behind such differences and the characteristics of Chinese stock market. In this section, I summarize the history of the Chinese stock market. China’s economy has changed from a centrally-planned economy (CPE), which was introduced in 1949, to a more market orientated economy  since 1978. China’s economic transition has been accompanied by a great social achievement since the late 1970s. However, there were some inherent deficiencies of the CPE, like the defective functioning of the planning mechanism, the monopolistic, non-contestable position of the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), the lack of adequate incentives, the lack of financial sanctions, the macro-economic, suboptimal allocation of resources (Gao, 2006 ). During the last three decades, China’s great successful economic transition has been accompanied by huge and complex social change, with an officially reported GDP growth rate of 9.5 percent per year since 1980 (Lindbeck, 2008). The growth rate of China’s economic has been among the highest in the world, especially since 1990. And China is a significant participant in the global economy currently. One of the most important developments was the reactivation of the stock market. To strengthen the operating performance and release the capital shortage experienced by SOEs, China has been promoting a market economy through corporatizing (i.e. privatizing) SOEs and developing securities markets. The origin of stock market in post-1949 mainland China can be traced to July 1984, when Beijing Tianqiao Department store was converted into a shareholding company. In August 1984, the Shanghai municipal government approved the first principle-level regulation on securities. The first stock was subsequently issued by a household electronics company in November 1984 and traded in August 1986 on the OTC market. In the next few years, more SOEs were â€Å"incorporated† by the selling of shares to their employees, other stock companies and other SOEs. The stock market, however, didn’t become a significant vehicle for SOE reform until the establishment of the two stock exchanges. In the early 1990s, the SHSE and the SZSE established, in December 1990 and in July 1991 respectively. In the following year, the Chinese Security Regulatory Commission (CSRC) was set up, as the Chinese equivalent of Securities and the Exchange Commission in the United States, to monitor and regulat e the stock market. Since then, the stock market has grown in a high speed, expanded rapidly and facilitated the reform of SOEs (Haw et al, 1999). In 1991, there were only 13 stocks listed and traded on these two exchanges (eight on SHSE and five on SZSE). By the first quarter of 2009, the number of firms listed had increased to 1625 (864 on SHSE and 761 on SZSE). (Gao, 2009) The total market capitalization of listed firms increased about 1522-fold over the 18-year period, from 11billion reminbi in 1991 (equivalent to about US$1.3 billion) to 12056.6 billion renminbi (equivalent to about US$1773 billion) in 2008 (Table 1). As of 24 April 2009, the total market capitalization was valued as 16742.768 billion renminbi (equivalent to about US$ 2462 billion) (Haw et al., 1999). 2 Literature review In this section, I initially discuss studies that examine the relationship between equity value and earnings and the relationship between equity values and book values respectively; then I examine the association of earnings and book values with equity values; finally I will focus on studies that have examined data from the Chinese stock market. 2.1 Studies examining association of earnings with equity value Generally speaking, much of the research in this area for the last 30 years was focused on inspecting the relationship between certain variables and equity values or stock price. In a seminal study, Ball and Brown (1968) found a positive and statistically significant association between earnings and equity value. An empirical evaluation of accounting income figures required for agreement as to what real-world results constituted a useful appropriate test. Because net income was a figure of particular interest to investors, the result they used as the standard forecast was the investment decision making as it was reflected in security prices. Since usefulness could be reduced by deficiencies in either of the content or the timing of existing annual net income numbers, both of them would be evaluated. The developments of capital theory at that time provided more choices to the price of security as an operational test of the usefulness of business. Impressive Institutions to support the idea of the theory that the capital market are both effective and fair, if the information is useful in forming capital asset prices, then the market in asset prices will be quickly adjusted to the information without leaving any opportunity for further abnormal gain. As the evidence indicates, if stock price do in fact really quickly adapt to the new information and then changes in stock prices will reflect the information market. As observed revision of stock prices and income report published would provide the evidence that the information reflected in the income figures are useful. Ball and Brown’s method of accounting on income to stock price was based on the theory and evidence by focusing on the unique information which is to a specific company. Specifically, Ball and Brown built two alternative models of what was the market expected income to be, and then investigated the error when the expected market response. 2.1.1  Expected and unexpected income changes According to Ball and Brown (1968), the income of enterprises in America tends to move together over the time. It has been demonstrated that about half of change in the level of average earnings per share (EPS) of a firm could be influenced by the whole economic environment. At least part of the change in the company’s income from one year to the next could be expected. In the past years, if a company’s revenue had been associated with other companies in a particular way, then understanding that relationship of the past, together with the understanding of the income of those other companies, had a particular expected rate of return at present. Therefore, in addition to confirm the impact of new information can have a similar equivalent to the differences between real change in income and expectations of income. But not all of these differences must be new information.  A number of changes in income were due to financing and other policy decisions made by the firm. Ball and Brown assumed that, to a first approximation, these changes were reflected in average change in income through time. Since the influence of the two components of change were felt at the same time, that is, economy wide and policy effects, the relationship must be estimated jointly. 2.1.2  The market reaction It had also been demonstrated that stock prices move together with the rate of return from holding stocks. The whole market return was influenced by the information released by all enterprises. (Ball and Brown, 1968) Since they were assessing report of income as it related to each company, its content and timing should be evaluated relative to the changes in the rate of return on the firms stocks net of whole market effects. 2.1.3  Some economic issues An assumption for Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) income regression model was that the average income of firm j in the market (Mj) and the unexpected income change were uncorrelated. Correlation between them could take at least two forms, which contained the firm in the market index of income (Mj) and the industry effects at that time. The first had been eliminated by construction (denoted by the y-subscript on M), but it had not been adjusted due to the impact of the industry at that time. It had been estimated that the impact of industry might account for only 10 percent of the variability of the income in a company. For this reason the model had been adopted as appropriate specifications, to believe that any bias in the estimates would not be very significant. However, as the statistical efficiency inspection on the model, Ball and Brown also presented results for another naà ¯ve model, which predicted that the income would be the same as last year. The forecast error (i.e. unexpected income change) was only changes in income since the previous year. As was the case with the income regression model, stock returns model contained a number of apparent violations of OLS assumptions. The return of market index was relevant to the residual because the market index contained the return for firm j, and because the industry impacts. Neither violation was serious, because the â€Å"Combination Investment Performance Index† of Fisher (Fisher, 1966) was calculated over all stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange (hence stock returns was only a small portion of the index), and also because the industry impacts accounted for up to 10 percent (Brealey, 1968) of the changes in the rate of return on the average stock. Again, any bias had little effect on the results, because there is in no case was the stock return regression that was fitted over 100 observations (Fama, et al., 1967). Therefore, Ball and Brown (1968) assumed that it was impossible that no useful information about a particular firm reflected the rate of return during a period, but only the market-wide information that fitted for all firms. By abstracting market impacts, they identified the impact of information fitted to individual firms. Then, in order to determine whether part of the effect could be associated with information contained in the numbers of accounting income of a firm, they separated the expected and unexpected changes in income. If the income forecast error was negative, that was, if the actual change in income was less than its conditional expectation, they defined it as a bad news and predicted that if there was some relationship between accounting income numbers and stock prices, and then releases of the income figures would lead to the return on that firm’s stock, which was less than what would have been originally expected. The results from the empirical test of Ball and Brown showed that the information contained in the annual income figures were useful, as it related to stock prices. Beaver, Clark, and Wright (1979) found similar results and confirmed the initial findings of Ball and Brown (1968). Subsequent studies (Barth, Beaver, Landsman, 1992; Collins Kothari, 1989) found similar results again. The research of Lipe (1990) found that the relationship between earnings and equity value changes with the persistence of earnings. This study found that the equity value during a period is a function of (1) the time-series persistence of the earnings series, (2) the interest rate used in discounting expected future earnings, and (3) the relative ability of earnings versus alternative information to predict future earnings. The comparative statistics of Lipe (1990) showed that the response coefficient played an increasingly important role for past earnings to predict future earnings and an increasing function of persistence. In addition, the movements of stock price changed conditionally on earnings being announced was a decreasing effect of the predictability of the earnings series and an increasing effect of earnings persistence. If the predictability or response-coefficient effect was positive, that was because the value attached to a one-dollar current-period earnings shock was an increasing effect of predictability; if the predictability or variance-of-price-changes effect was negative, that was because the average quantity of unexpected information released during the period was a decreasing effect of predictability. Other studies refined the earlier studies by disintegrating earnings into components and then empirically testing the association between these components and equity values (Lipe, 1986; Wilson, 1986). 2.2 Studies examining association of book values with equity values A great number of studies focus on the balance sheet measures of assets and liabilities. These studies find a statistically significant relationship between book values and equity values of the firm (Penman, 1992; Barth Kallapur, 1996; Ohison, 1995; Berger, Ofek, Swary, 1996; Burgstahler Dichev, 1997). Book values of the firm’s assets and liabilities are used in these studies, which reinforce the assumption that measures of assets and liabilities reflect the expected results of future activities. However, some different conclusions are arrived at by the studies regarding the importance of book value. Barth and Kallapur (1996) stated that book value was important only because it acted as a control for size differences. Penman (1992) and Ohlson (1995) concluded that book value is important because it also acted as a proxy for earnings. Still others offer a competing explanation. Berger et al. (1996) reported that there is a positive and highly significant relation between market value and estimated liquidation value after controlling for present value of expected cash flow. Further assurance that correlated omitted variables do not affect the results is provided by the fact that the positive relation between market values and liquidation value changes in holding as well as levels. Berger et al. (1996) stated that the abandonment option was equal to an American put option on a paying dividend stock. Their analysis of this option results in the forecasting about how liquidation value influences firm value. All the other equality, the abandonment option leads to firms with a much bigger number of liquidation values being worth more investors. Therefore, they predict that market value is positively associated with liquidation value, after controlling for the relationship between market value and the present value of expected cash flow. Generally speaking, liquidation value for going concerns is not observable. Moreover, they concern more about the association between balance sheet information and the abandonment option’s value. They, therefore, estimate the relation between book value and liquidation value for major asset classes by choosing and analyzing the discontinued options footnotes of 157 sufficiently-detailed information firms. They find that one-dollar book value produces, 72 cents of liquidation value for receivables on average. Applying these estimates to the balance sheet disclosures of all the firms used as samples provides them with estimated liquidation values. In the empirical results, they report that after controlling for the option’s exercise price, the market value of a firm’s equity increases in a close approximation one for one with increases in the present value of after-interest cash flows. The significant positive estimate on the excess liquidation value movements continues to support the inference that the abandonment option makes a more important and significant contribution to the market value of a firm’s equity than that made by the present value of cash flow. To investigate the change over time in the association between abandonment option value and liquidation value, and to solve that problem that the pooled observations may not be independent, because it includes the same firm for many years. The results of their further research continue to show a positive, strong relation between the estimated liquidation value and the market value of the firm’s equity. Moreover, to further reduction of the concern that the inferences may be influenced by the liquidation value measure capturing a portion of true present value of cash flow that is omitted from their proxy, they perform an analysis in changes. At the same time, the sample contains all first differences of the firms from the levels analysis that meet sample selection restrictions. Berger et al. (1996) require that the first earnings prediction occur no later than the fourth month after the date liquidation value is calculated, which make sure that the changes in liquidation value and present value of cash flow are aligned properly in time for each firm in the sample. The change of percentage in equity value is for the purpose that captures the impact of operational decisions, not the impact of insurances and redemptions. So they delete the firms with insurances and retirements. The results for the changes is as expected, the fact that the latter estimate is significantly positive supports strong evidence, however, that the association they documented earlier between equity value and liquidation value was not affected by liquidation value and the present value of cash flow that both measure different part of true present value of cash flow. The constant component of any association between liquidation value and the omitted part of true present value of cash flow is removed by examining changes rather than levels. Therefore, Berger et al. continue to find the strong, positive association liquidation value and equity value of a firm. Berger et al. (1996) and Burgstahler and Dichev (1997) concluded that book value has relatively more significant association with stock prices when a firm is unsuccessful and making losses. They argued that this was because book value acted as a proxy for the â€Å"abandonment option†. 2.3 Studies examining association of earnings and book values with equity values Some studies observe the association between earnings and book values with equity values. Bernard (1995) tested several valuation models empirically. He found that book value per share accounted for 55% of the cross sectional variability in price per share; that book value and rank of return on equity accounted for 64% of the variation in equity price; and that estimated earnings and book values accounted for 68% of the variation in equity prices. Ohlson (1995) did not focus on earnings alone; theoretically, he modeled the role of earnings, book value and dividends in the valuation of a firm’s equity. An important combined function to the statement of changes in owner’s equity is allocated by accounting method. The statement includes the bottom-line items in the balance sheet and income statement, book value and earnings, and its format needs the change in book value to equal earnings minus dividends. This relation is referred as the clean surplus relationship because all changes in assets and liabilities which are unrelated to dividends must pass though the income statement. Generally, this scheme is accepted by accounting theory without connecting it to a user’s perspective on accounting data. While the underlying idea that net stocks of value settle with the creation and distribution of value produces a basic question in an equity valuation context: whether one can create a cohesive theory of a firm’s value that depends on the clean surplus relation to identify a distinct role for each of the three variables: earnings, book value and dividends. Ohlson (1995) resolves the question in a neoclassical framework. In this case, the analysis starts from the assumption that value is equal to the present value of expected dividends (Rubinstein, 1976). Then one can assume the clean surplus relation to replace dividends with earnings and book values in the formula of present value. At the same time, a multiple-date, uncertain model such that earnings and book value act as complementary value indicators is led to by assumption on the stochastic behavior of the accounting data, In a specific way, the main point of the valuation function expresses value as a weighted average of (i) capitalized earnings at present (adjusted for dividends) and (ii) book value at present. Extreme parameterizations of the model produce either capitalized earnings or book value at presents the only value indicators. Ohlson (1991) have examined both of the settings. At its most primary level, he accordingly generalizes prior analysis to derive a convex combination of a pure flow model of value and a pure stock model of value. The combination is an interesting conception because both the bottom-line items are brought into valuation through the clean additional relation. The development of model, in which Ohlson (1995) produces the value of a firm as linear additive functions of both earnings and book value, shows the relevance of abnormal or residual earnings as a variable that drives a company’s value. Earnings minus a charge for the use of capital define this accounting-based performance measure as measured by book value that is in the beginning of period multiplied by the cost of capital. Abnormal or residual earnings hold on the difference market and book values, that is to say, they bear the goodwill of a company. As a matter of fact, a particular parsimonious expression for goodwill is derived from a straight forward two step procedure as it relates to abnormal or residual earnings. Firstly, following Peasnell (1981) and others, the clean surplus relation indicates that goodwill is equal to the present value of future expected abnormal or residual earnings. Secondly, if one further assumes that abnormal or residual earnings comply with an autoregressive process, then it follows that goodwill is equal to abnormal or residual earnings at present scaled by a positive constant. The results emphasize that value can be driven by assuming abnormal or residual earnings processes that make no reference to past or future expected dividends. Not only does owners’ equity accounting subsume the clean surplus relation, it also indicates that dividends reduce book value but leave earnings at present unaffected. This additional feature is exploited to examine the margin effects of dividends on value and on the evolution of accounting data (Modigliani, 1958; Miller, 1961). Market value is displaced by dividends on a dollar for dollar basis, so that dividend payment irrelevancy applies. In addition to that, dividends that paid today impact expected future earnings negatively. The creation of wealth is separated by the model accordingly from the distribution of wealth. On the important condition that one generally attaches to Modigliani and Miller (1958, 1961) properties in valuation analysis, the economic significance of owners’ equity accounting is enhanced by the requirement that dividends reduce book value but not current earnings. The model allows information beyond earnings, book value and dividends. The additional information is motivated by the idea that expected future earnings are affected by some relevant value events as opposed to current earnings, that is to say, accounting measurements incorporate some relevant value events only after a time delay. The feature is interesting because the analysis implies that the weighted average of capitalized earnings and book value still support the main point of the valuation function, though the accounting data will be incomplete indicators of value. Ohlson (1995) made a conclusion that, earnings at present might have a strong relation with market value of equity while current dividends are more important than future earnings in predictive ability. He made the theoretical framework for further empirical explorations. In a further refinement of Ohlson (1995), Burgstahler and Dichev (1997) showed that earnings and book values are positively and significant associated with equity values. However, they found that the relationship was nonlinear (i.e., moderated by factors such as success of a firm) and not additive as suggested by Ohlson (1995). In 1997, the research of theirs developed an option- style model of equity value that incorporated the capitalized value of the firm’s expected earnings (under the assumption that the firm continues its current way of employing resources) but also explicitly recognized the value of firms adaption option (i.e. the value of the option converted the firm’s resources to alternative, more productive uses). The main forecasting of the model is that the value of equity is a convex function of both expected earnings and book value. Their empirical evidence strongly supported the prediction of convexity – the coefficient on earnings increased with the ratio of earnings to book value and the coefficient on book value decreased with the ratio of earnings to book value. They developed two propositions for the relationship of recursion (a proxy of earnings) and adaptation value (a proxy of book value of equity) components with market value. In the model below, an option-style combination of recursion value and adaptation value are reflected in the equity value. Recursion value is capitalized expected earnings when the company recursively applies its business technology at present to its resources. Adaptation value is the value of the company’s resources which adapted to an alternative use. The possibility that the company will exercise the option to conform the resources to another way to use is reflected in the relative weights on the two factors of market value of equity. In a specific way, when the recursion value is not high relative to the adaptation value, the company will opt out of recursion value in favor of adaptation value. Two propositions are led to by the shape of valuation function in each argument. The model is as follows: MV (E, AV)EAV There are four basic terms in the model. MV represents market value of equity; E represents expected future earnings which use the company’s business technology at present; c represents capitalization factor for earnings; AV represents adaptation value. E and AV are random variables. The joint distribution of the two variables is described by the multivariate no