Engineering Materials Characterization of PM Stainless Steels Essay

Engineering Materials Characterization of PM Stainless Steels - Essay Example Also the effect of temperature and the hardness effect on the steel produced from the mixture will be described with essential research material read over the course of the experiment ad its description (German, 1990) EFFECTS OF BORON IN STEEL Boron is a very useful element when used for alloying purposes in many materials but in the experiment it will be illustrated along with researched facts as an alloying element in steel because of its effect on harden-ability enhancement. Boron is added to unalloyed or low level alloyed steels to enhance the level of hardness of the alloy. Boron steels are used as high-quality, heat-treatable construction steels, steels for carburization and forming cold steels such as steels for screws. The property change with the amount of boron added and the temperature affect will be discussed in detail in the paper (Adam, 2000) Boron also is known to activate liquid phase sintering and to reduce the sintering temperature that is needed a achieve a highly dense alloy metals (Raymond, 1994). The liquid phase arises from the existence of a low melting-point eutectic reaction that is produced by the reaction between the boron and the alloying element in the steel with the alloy is being constructed. ... These small amounts may be sufficient enough to hardened the alloy with the correct heat treatment. For understanding purpose the terms sintering or hardenability should be explained. Sintering or hardenabilty is a measure of how much martensite is formed at a given cooling rate in steel. The hardenabilty of steel is defined as the maximum diameter of a cylinder that has a microstructure that is 50% at its centre after quenching from the austinizing temperature (Reed, pp. 35). Effect of Temperature on the Mixture For the particular purpose of finding out the effect of the addition on boron in them mixture to form PM we need to go through some previous research work which has been done in this particular field. The effects will be described as well proven graphically, which will be extracted from previous researches. Generally it is thought that the PM alloy of boron will have a finer finish and a better sintering value. For pressing on the previous fact we will see the effect of boro n addition into the mixture ranging from Low levels of boron (0.1-0.15%) along with the increase in temperature. ANALYSIS As described above, pictorial reference will be used to explain the description to go along with it. The figure will be color coded and self explanatory but for the purpose of understanding, extended elaboration has been provided. The figure shows the sintered density when the amount of boron is added from being non-existent to a level of 0.15. it is clearly visible that when the concentration of boron increases the sintered density increases. The sintered density is the factor that increases the hardenablity of the steel alloy. At 0% induction of boron in the alloy the sintered density

Performance Management Essay Example for Free

Performance Management Essay â€Å"Talent now gravitates to an organization that is flexible, has strong values and a robust performance ethic (Bhal, 2002).† In any organization no matter the size performance management is a critical element in regards to the human element that is the foundation of the organization. In order to effectively place, manage, and develop personnel a performance management plan is an essential part of the development process. In accordance with the previous recommendations for the Bollman Hotel’s planned expansion into India, the following information will be in regards to the alignment, job analysis, measurement, philosophy, and feedback of a recommended performance management plan. Alignment According to Bhal, many of the organizations in the India market have not focused on the human resource aspect of the business module (Bhal, 2002, p. 141). This has left a hard task to overcome for those companies looking to expand into the area. India has seen the need for a transformation in the Human Resource department, in terms of their treatment and beliefs in the management of their personnel. According to Amba-Rao, Petrick, Gupta, and Von der Embse there are four major areas that are said to be under renovation (Amba-Rao, Petrick, Gupta, Von der Embse, 2000, p. 61). The four areas are listed as: first, â€Å"high performance work systems have been shown to be crucial to sustaining global competiveness and they rely upon objective, adequate PA processes†, second â€Å"the productivity of work cultures in Indian organizations is jeopardized by employee PA practices that appear biased, ad hoc and non-integrated into a globally competitive HRM system, third â€Å"Indian managers have been criticized for not involving employees in the PA process†, and lastly â€Å" managerial values that are national culture-based, organizational culture-based and firm ownership-based can enhance or inhibit individual and organizational performance satisfaction† (Amba-Rao, Petrick, Gupta, Von der Embse, 2000, p. 61). These are the misconceptions and obstacles of that must be overcome for any organization venturing into India. Organizational Performance Philosophy Company philosophy must integrate the Indian culture as the expansion of the Bollman Hotel expands. According to Amba-Rao, Petrick, Gupta, and Von der Embse, studies have shown a low expectation of Indian workers as it relates to empowerment, effiecency, and development (Amba-Rao, Petrick, Gupta, Von der Embse, 2000, p. 65). This should be a strong focal point as Bollman looks into the expansion into this country. By ensuring that all of the employees feel they are valued and entrisical to the operations and success of the organization it will help the overall morale of the organization. As described by Cascio the treatment and philosophy of that employees ascribe to an organization is called employee relations (Cascio, 2010, p. 548). These are essential considerations in the development of the performance plan for the expansion of the Bollman Hotel. Job Analysis In the HRM field job analysis is defined by Cascio as â€Å"the process of obtaining and information about jobs† (Cascio W. , 2010, p. 163). In order to properly define a skill or job needed in the new market you must first look at the attributes and skill sets desired for each job function. Employees are the foundation of the organization and to develop and establish a good employee brand is an essential function of any organization. This task will not be a daunting task for the already prevalent Bollman Hotel. However, there will be a need for fine tuning and aligning the merging culture and socio-economics with the current Bollman brand. Measurement Procedures Cascio describes a performance management plan as a form of compass for the employee and employer (Cascio W. , 2010, p. 330). In establishing and assessing performance there must be established goals for each employee and an established measurement of each goal for that employee. In the instance of the Bollman Hotel, set measurements could be established based upon  customer complaints per 10 customers for example. Another measurement could be the number of return business clients per quarter. Skill Gaps and Delivering Performance Feedback By establishing a firm expectancy and goals for each employee and defined job descriptions this will help to ensure a quality performance plan. India employee pool is looking for an organization that will promote from within and place an emphasis on the development of each employee. The assessments need to be a formal integration into the policies and performance system in order to avoid skill gaps and performance gaps. A strong training, coaching, and integration process is essential to ensuring each employee is aware of their expectations and receive proper training for each desired job function (Bhal, 2002). In the Indian culture by making biased decisions and not giving a fair appraisal to each employee with the necessary feedback is a critical mistake that has plagued the Indian human resource arena (Amba-Rao, Petrick, Gupta, Von der Embse, 2000). India has seen a strong acceptance of open discussion in terms of feedback from employees during appraisals. This will help to foster a rapport a mutual understanding of expectations and goals listed for each employee. This also gives the manager the opportunity to establish a form of relationship with the employees and allows for a free flow of information up and down the chain of command. However, by doing this the manager need to ensure that the respect and communication is respectful and mutually beneficial (Bhal, 2002). Cascio has listed some useful feedback methodologies. The goal of each appraisal feedback session should look to improve and provide the employee with valuable information needed to advance and excel within the organization (Cascio W. , 2010, p. 341). Appraisals are also in compliance with the Labor Relation Laws of India and the documentation required to terminate an employee if need be. The use of comparisons or ranking systems may be a negative reinforcement system in terms of feedback per the India cultural and socio-economic systems in place (Bhal, 2002). This will also add to the divide of the cultural systems currently in place. Conclusion In essence a formal and detailed performance management system is essential to building a strong foundation for Bollman Hotel’s to flourish and thrive. In knowing the driving force behind the culture and what problems lay in waiting that could be the potential downfall of the hotel. By having strong communication and a good feedback system in place it will ensure that to break the stereotypical human resource conceptions and establish a strong foundation work force for Bollman. References Amba-Rao, S. C., Petrick, J., Gupta, J. N., Von der Embse, T. J. (2000). Comparative performance appraisal practices and management values among foreign and domestic firms in India. Int. J. of Human Resource Management, 11(1), 60-89. Bhal, K. (2002). Perceived Role of Human Resource Management in Indian Organizations: An Empirical Study 1. Global Business Review , 3(139), 139-152. Cascio, W. (2010). Managing Human Resources. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies . Cascio, W. F. (2010). Chapter 14 Procedural Justice and Ethics in Employee Relations. In W. F. Cascio, 8th (Ed.), Managing Human Resources (pp. 546-575). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies.

Green Mountain National Forest :: Essays Papers

Green Mountain National Forest The Green Mountain National Forest, established in 1932, is Vermont’s only National Forest. It is managed in the spirit of multiple uses, including recreational activities, logging and watershed protection and management. An ecosystems management approach has recently been adopted by the U.S. Forest Service in maintaining the forest. In 1964 the Congress of the United States passed the Wilderness Act in an attempt to set aside, in the words of the act, "an area where earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man"; the lands designated as wilderness areas were to be "affected primarily by nature." Six areas, totaling 59,598 acres of the Green Mountain Forest were upgraded to Wilderness status following the 1964 Congressional Wilderness Act. These areas represent some of the best of Vermont’s outdoor world. The largest of these wilderness areas is Breadloaf Wilderness, totaling 21,480 acres in the Middlebury district of the forest. The Long Trail crosses this wilderness for 17 miles, traversing 11 peaks measuring over 3000’. The Lye Brook Wilderness encompasses 15,680 acres in the Manchester district, and boasts the stunning Lye Brook Falls as its centerpiece. The next largest is the Peru Peak Wilderness, comprised of 6,920 acres, centered around the trail-less Peru Peak in the Manchester district. The Appalachian and Long Trails cross the southern tip of this wilderness for about 3 miles. The Big Branch Wilderness is similarly sized at 6,720 acres, and is crossed by the Appalachian Trail. Big Branch is home to pristine banks of the Big Branch River and healthy stands of giant hardwoods. The eastern part of the wilderness is a large wetland ecosystem called Elbow Swamp. The George D. Aiken Wilderness is a favorite among fishermen. Located in the Manchester district, the park boasts 5,060 protected acres. Be sure to bring rubber boots as the wilderness is almost entirely wetlands.

Doggy Care Executive Summary

â€Å"Doggie steps† is a pet business venture, which aims to be set as a leading example in booming business of pet care markets. The operations of the company will be modelled on the basis of innovation, strategic acquisition and brand growth. With a fantastic portfolio of human resources and products which we are intensely passionate about, we will delight growing number of customers in gurgaon with great care every single day. Everything we do will be channelled by the company’s philosophy of care, innovation, customer centricity and intense passion.This report will outline the initial steps to meet the company’s objectives and goals. This report has been formulated after collecting individual insights from key players of the company; which will be instrumental in establishing the company â€Å"Doggie steps†. Our report begins with an overview related to the key events and the developments that has aided the company founders to set up this business vent ure. In this section, the readers will be able to relate the company’s vision to the significant details of the market. Strategic approach to needs and reasons for choosing a location has been summarised in this section.A brief account of the market related figures has been provided in the market analysis section of the report. This section will also broach upon the current gaps in the market that needs proper attention. The next section will explain how the company is going to provide value to the customers. A six step plan, which has been formulated by the company founders, has been provided in this section. The company aims to win market share by practicing the six step plan. Also a detailed marketing mix comprising key characteristics has been explained in detail to complement and help us meet our goals with respect to the six step plan.The following sections- pricing and distribution channels has been supported with facts and figures that will be implemented by the compa ny to start up the operations of our business venture. The next section, planning, is explained in detail to provide a clear view of the strategies that will be executed to abide by our mission and eventually realize our vision. This section will illustrate that the company has a bold ambition to build a national framework by entering new markets, unconquered markets and with service that will be differentiated and practiced on the scale of world class delivery.The planning section has been divided into sales and financial to provide a clear understanding of the amount that will be invested and the consequential return on investment that will be stipulated for the company. The financial planning section has been formulated with the help of well known business strategists in the market of pet care. Accounting records has also been provided in this section to help the reader analyze the probability of profits and minimization of losses for the company on account of the initial expendi tures.The section operational plan has requisite conditions specified for the type of customers that the company is going to cater to. These conditions has been made based on the historical records of the pet care activities which included damages caused by the unruly behaviour of different species of dogs that had been catered to. Health related specifications in the conditions, mentioned in the section have also been provided based on the advice of veterinarians and members of animal council organizations.A schedule for the operational activities has also been provided in this section to help the customers to understand the different services offered at different times. The company aims to deliver exceptional service by employing qualified personnel’s. The report will also identify the reasons, why doggie steps as a company will be embracing talented professionals to provide high class of service in the city of Gurgaon. The section- human resource and human – resourc e policies have been made after indentifying the needs of the company and the goals that the company is aspiring for.A brief explanation of the job profiles of each valuable participant of our operation has been outlined to help the readers understand the amount of care and service that our customer will be given. At the end of the report, policies have been explained in brief to give an account of the codes and conduct that will be practices by our company. Finally, this report is an account of the business operations of a newly formed company that will be looking to enhance its prospects in the coming years.Several key strategies instrumental for the success of our company is formulated on the aspect; a new company entering a growing sector and aspirations to reach new heights in the field of pet-care. The founders of the company are aspiring to build a national brand by focussing on innovation, processes, distribution and people. In each section of this report, the aforementioned characteristics will be the basis to explain the strategies, figures and goals for the company. Through this report, we would like to encourage our business partners and customers to share our vision and join us on our mission.

Development Of Christianity

Christianity developed as a combination of Jewish monotheism and Roman universalism. It developed this way because it started out in a society that was anti-Jewish and Roman, and ended in a society that was Roman and Christian. Christians were originally persecuted by the Romans along with the Jews, who also persecuted them. One of the earliest people to spread Christianity to Greece and Asia Minor at the same time was the apostle Paul. Pauline Christianity synthesized the role of Jesus as a divine figure with Greek traditions.Christianity emerged from Judaism, but there are key differences to remember. The Jews view themselves as inheritors of a historical religious tradition that binds their society together no matter where it is. Christian eschatology does not view the coming of God as a historical event. The apostle Paul still left a definitive and lasting impression on Christian history and the way Jesus was thought of by the mass numbers that Paul was able to convert in Greece and Asia Minor.Paul, who received a vision of Jesus that blinded him, and then was miraculously healed, became one of the first Christian evangelists, spreading the word of Jesus throughout his lifetime. His traditional pattern of teaching was to begin speaking at a local synagogue, get thrown out, and continue to preach to the masses in more bucolic areas, establishing small churches through the teachings of Jesus that were later expanded in other evangelical trips.Through his wide travels, purposeful indifference to persecution, and the expostulation and sometime exhortation of the idea, still generally applied, that Christians cannot impose an ethnicity upon those who come into the faith, Paul spread the word of Christianity, performing exorcisms and miracles, guided by his concept of otherworldly forces while still being grounded in his ability to tell their voices from his own. Paul set a whole new precedent for participating in Jesus.It is also arguable that the prevailing con ception of Jesus changed with the social territory Paul covered, graded upon the inhabitants’ prior belief systems as adaptive mechanisms that accepted while changing the idea of Jesus in ways that were primarily Jewish (paternalistic, monotheistic), Greek (Dionysian), and Roman (universalist). As time went on, the idea of Jesus returning to earth became less popular and the religion shifted from being persecuted to being accepted, revitalized, and set in a system of official theology.The idea of Jesus at this point changed as it was determined universally by council what was to be thought of Jesus; whether or not he was human or divine, submissive to the idea of the father, etc. It is easy for any society to take the parables of Jesus and do virtually anything with them, since many of the parables are so open-ended. Some of these confusions were cleared up by councilor definitions, and others were added.All of the gospel writers had a different agenda in presenting the life of Jesus; this is perhaps the main reason, apart from the natural flux of a changing  society, that the understanding of Jesus was capable of changing from age to age: the definitive texts on his message are often contradictory and are fairly open to interpretation. The formation of Christianity was basically a combination of Jewish monotheism and Roman universalism, perhaps with some Greek paganism as well. One of the earliest relationships between Christianity and the surrounding culture was highly influenced by the journeys of the apostle Paul. Paul went into different geographical regions as he spread the word of Christianity, as mentioned.â€Å"Paul worked intensely to collect money for ‘the poor among the saints at Jerusalem†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ Considering the importance that Paul attaches to this mission, and also the stress on economic themes in Luke-Acts, it is very odd that Luke fails to mention either the poverty of the Jerusalem church or Paul’s Great Collecti on† (Schneider, 2002). All of the gospel writers had a different agenda in presenting the religion is not necessarily a whole and functioning world that is intrinsically separated from society; since it relies upon society to thrive, it must necessarily make allowances as this society changes.When dealing with Christianity and conceptions of Jesus throughout the Christian age, one must take into account societal and religious shifts as they occur synchronously. For example, for hundreds of years after the death of Jesus, Christians were not fully accepted, and were condemned and executed by the Romans. An exploration of the evolving understanding of Jesus at this point revolves around his parables and also the onset of Pauline Christianity.Although some skeptics outside of Christianity attribute the apostle Paul’s states of grace to a disease the apostle himself perhaps mentions in the Bible, and even within the Catholic church some argue that his visions may have been hallucinations or perhaps the result of a CNS disorder which carried him to spastic heights of epiphany, Paul still left a definitive and lasting impression on Christian history and the way Jesus was thought of by the mass numbers that Paul was able to convert, thus changing the face of Christianity to its status as a scourge in early Roman times to an official state religion towards the fall of Rome. REFERENCE Schneider, J.R. (2002).   The Good of Affluence.   Grand Rapids, MI:   William B.  Eerdmans.

Internationalists

Internationalists Internationalists thought: "‚ ¢ That new technology made American involvement in the war inevitable "‚ ¢ That American prosperity depended on maintaining order in the global economy.Many internationalists were executives of multi-national companies such as IBM, General Electric, Kodak, General Motors and Standard Oil. Hence, these people wanted low tariffs and an open market.Some of these companies worked illicitly with Nazi Germany into the 1930's.*Interesting Fact* GM and Ford produced half of Hitler's tanks in the 1930's.Many internationalist politicians were intimidated by the isolationist's strength in Congress.Historian Robert Divine thought that, "most internationalists were old-stock Protestants, felt close to Great Britain, and believed that America had replaced Britain as the world's greatest power."‚  He also felt that internationalists were really only concerned with Europe, as they "took Latin America for granted and neglected the Orient."‚  Pre sident Roosevelt himself was an internationalist, which lent to the speculation that he actually knew about the attack on Pearl Harbour before it happened.English: Meets with King Ibn Saud, of Saudi Arabia...

The Odd Couple Summary essays

The Odd Couple Summary essays English 12/19/00 Five friends, all guys are sitting around playing poker in Oscar's apartment. The place really messy because Oscar's wife left him. The men are just hanging out, playing cards and eating food. Murray, a policeman, is wondering where Felix is because he has not missed a Poker game in over two years. The men wonder if he is at the movies or out with a girl. Frances, Felix's wife calls to say that she and Felix are getting a divorce and he sent her a suicide telegram. The men begin worrying about Felix. There is a knock at the door; it is Felix. They all agree to act like nothing has happened. Felix walks in and kind of looks around and out the window, not really saying anything. He says he has to use the bathroom. His friends become a little worried about him going alone but they let him anyway. Oscar and his friends jump up from the poker table and crowd around the bathroom listening for sounds of suicide but they only hear Felix crying. Felix comes out and tells them about the divorce. Felix runs around the apartment talking about his unhappiness. He has no place to stay and misses his wife already. His friends try to calm him down and finally stop him. Oscar is so fed up with Felix's running around the apartment and complaining that he throws a glass of water at him! Felix sits in the chair and complains of a stomachache. He admits to taking a few pills before he left his house. His friends become worried but Felix tells them that he threw them up before so he should be all right. His friends decide that they should go home and they leave Felix alone with Oscar. Oscar convinces Felix to live with him since now they are both single. Oscar and Felix host another poker game but this time the atmosphere is very di ...

Venustiano Carranza, Revolutionary President of Mexico

Venustiano Carranza, Revolutionary President of Mexico Venustiano Carranza Garza (December 29, 1859–May 21, 1920) was a Mexican politician, warlord, and general. Before the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) he served as mayor of Cuatro Cià ©negas and as a congressman and senator. When the Revolution broke out, he initially allied himself with Francisco Maderos faction and independently raised his own army when Madero was assassinated. Carranza was president of Mexico from 1917–1920 but was unable to keep a lid on the chaos that had plagued his country since 1910. He was assassinated in Tlaxcalantongo in 1920 by troops led by General Rodolfo Herrero. Fast Facts: Venustiano Carranza Known For: Revolutionary leader and president of MexicoBorn: December 29, 1859 in Cuatro Cià ©negas, MexicoParents: Jesà ºs Carranza, mother unknownDied: May 21, 1920 in Tlaxcalantongo, Puebla, MexicoEducation: Ateneo Fuente, Escuela Nacional PreparatoriaSpouse(s): Virginia Salinas, Ernestina HernndezChildren: Rafael Carranza Hernndez, Leopoldo Carranza Salinas, Virginia Carranza, Jesà ºs Carranza Hernndez, Venustiano Carranza Hernndez Early Life Carranza was born into an upper-middle-class family in Cuatro Cià ©negas in the state of Coahuila on December 29, 1859. His father had been an officer in the army of Benito Jurez in the turbulent 1860s. This connection to Jurez would have a profound influence on Carranza, who idolized him. The Carranza family had money, and Venustiano was sent to excellent schools in Saltillo and Mexico City. He returned to Coahuila and dedicated himself to the family ranching business. Entry Into Politics The Carranzas had high ambitions, and with the backing of family money, Venustiano was elected mayor of his hometown. In 1893, he and his brothers rebelled against the rule of Coahuila Governor Josà © Marà ­a Garza, a crooked crony of President Porfirio Dà ­az. They were powerful enough to secure the nomination of a different governor. Carranza made some friends in high places in the process, including Bernardo Reyes, an important friend of Dà ­az. Carranza rose politically, becoming a congressman and senator. By 1908, it was widely assumed he would be the next governor of Coahuila. Personality Carranza was a tall man, standing a full 6-foot-4, and he looked very impressive with his long white beard and glasses. He was intelligent and stubborn but had very little charisma. A dour man, his lack of sense of humor was legendary. He was not the sort to inspire great loyalty, and his success in the revolution was mainly due to his ability to portray himself as a wise, stern patriarch who was the nations best hope for peace. His inability to compromise led to several severe setbacks. Although he was personally honest, he seemed indifferent to corruption in those who surrounded him. Carranza, Dà ­az, and Madero Carranza was not confirmed as governor by Dà ­az and he joined the movement of Francisco Madero, who had called for rebellion after the fraudulent 1910 election. Carranza did not contribute much to Maderos rebellion but was rewarded with the post of minister of war in Maderos cabinet, which infuriated revolutionaries such as Pancho Villa and Pascual Orozco. Carranzas union with Madero was always tenuous, as Carranza was not a true believer in reform and he felt that a firmer hand (preferably his) was needed to rule Mexico. Madero and Huerta In 1913, Madero was betrayed and assassinated by one of his generals, a relic from the Dà ­az years named Victoriano Huerta. Huerta made himself president and Carranza rebelled. He drafted a Constitution that he named the Plan of Guadalupe and took to the field with a growing army. Carranzas small force largely sat out the early part of the revolt against Huerta. He formed an uneasy alliance with Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata, and Alvaro Obregà ³n, an engineer and farmer who raised an army in Sonora. United only by their hatred of Huerta, they turned on one another when their combined forces deposed him in 1914. Carranza Takes Charge Carranza had set up a government with himself as the head. This government printed money, passed laws, etc. When Huerta fell, Carranza (supported by Obregà ³n) was the strongest candidate to fill the power vacuum. Hostilities with Villa and Zapata broke out almost immediately. Although Villa had a more formidable army, Obregà ³n was the better tactician and Carranza was able to portray Villa as a sociopathic bandit in the press. Carranza also held Mexicos two main ports and, therefore, was collecting more revenue than Villa. By the end of 1915, Villa was on the run and the United States government recognized Carranza as Mexicos leader. Carranza vs. Obregà ³n With Villa and Zapata out of the picture, Carranza was officially elected president in 1917. He brought very little change, however, and those who truly wanted to see a new, more liberal Mexico after the revolution were disappointed. Obregà ³n retired to his ranch, although the fighting continued- particularly against Zapata in the south. In 1919, Obregà ³n decided to run for president. Carranza attempted to crush his former ally, as he already had his handpicked successor in Ignacio Bonillas. Obregà ³ns supporters were repressed and killed and Obregà ³n himself decided that Carranza would never leave office peacefully. Death Obregà ³n brought his army to Mexico City, driving Carranza and his supporters out. Carranza headed to Veracruz to regroup, but the trains were attacked and he was forced to abandon them and go overland. He was received in the mountains by local chieftain Rodolfo Herrera, whose men opened fire on a sleeping Carranza late at night on May 21, 1920, killing him and his top advisors and supporters. Herrera was put on trial by Obregà ³n, but it was clear that no one missed Carranza: Herrera was acquitted. Legacy The ambitious Carranza made himself one of the most important figures in the Mexican Revolution because he truly believed that he knew what was best for the country. He was a planner and organizer and succeeded through clever politicking, whereas others relied on strength of arms. His defenders point out that he brought some stability to the country and provided a focus for the movement to remove the usurper Huerta. He made many mistakes, however. During the fight against Huerta, he was the first to declare that those who opposed him would be executed, as he considered his to be the only legitimate government in the land after the death of Madero. Other commanders followed suit, and the result was the death of thousands who might have been spared. His unfriendly, rigid nature made it difficult for him to retain his hold on power, especially when some of the alternative leaders, such as Villa and Obregà ³n, were much more charismatic. Today, Carranza is remembered as one of the â€Å"Big Four† of the Mexican Revolution, along with Zapata, Villa, and Obregà ³n. Although for most of the time between 1915 and 1920 he was more powerful than any of them, he is today probably the least remembered of the four. Historians point out Obregà ³ns tactical brilliance and rise to power in the 1920s, Villas legendary bravery, flair, style and leadership, and Zapatas unwavering idealism and vision. Carranza had none of these. Still, it was during his watch that the Mexican Constitution still used today was ratified and he was by far the lesser of two evils when compared to the man he replaced, Victoriano Huerta. He is remembered in the songs and legends of the north (although primarily as the butt of Villas jokes and pranks) and his place in the history of Mexico is secure. Sources Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. â€Å"Venustiano Carranza.† Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica, 8 Feb. 2019.McLynn, Frank. Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution. New York: Carroll and Graf, 2000.

The task is to produce a report on Google and Yahoo, comparing both Essay

The task is to produce a report on Google and Yahoo, comparing both companies in relation - Essay Example It has been apparently observed that the aspects like organisational structure, design along with culture plays a decisive part on developing the financial position of the organisations at large. In this regard, different structures, cultures as well as designs have been viewed to prevail in diverse organizations. For instance, the government proves to be beneficial for the society, the cooperative businesses for the members comprising the cooperative society and finally the organization for the owners. A particular organisation generally comprises of different cultured employees. As a result, their beliefs, manners and values differ from others within the organizations. Hence, culture plays a vital part in the development of the organizations at large. The structure of any organization directly affects its employees, stakeholders and the suppliers in terms of better utilization of the accessible resources assisting the organization towards achieving growth and success. The organizat ion broadly prioritises the aforementioned significant aspects for the purpose of accomplishing their predetermined business targets (Foss, 2012). Google Inc. was invented in the year 1995 and was acknowledged as ‘Backrub’ in the beginning. Serge Brin and Larry Page are the founders of Google. It is the first major IT Company that has attained ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certification that depict enhanced standard for workforce safety and environmental issues. Recently, a new product of the company named Google Earth 6.2 has supported it towards accomplishing organisational success. Larry Page is the Chief Executive Director (CEO) of the company. He is a computer scientist and is mainly focusing upon applying pioneering technological advancements with the intention of developing its broad assortment of products and complying with the requirements of the customers. A few advanced products of Google are Android, Nexus7 Tablet and Google Play among others (Foss, 2012). The s earch market share of the company reached at the level of 65.6 percent in the year 2012 (Incisive Interactive Marketing LLC., 2013). On the other hand, Yahoo Inc. is regarded as an American based multinational business corporation that is broadly acknowledged throughout the globe mainly for its dynamic web portal and useful search engines. The company focuses upon facilitating the end users to be entertained by updating them with latest news and entertainment updates. Jerry Yang & David Filo are the founders of the company. It was established in the year 1994. Presently, Marissa Mayer is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company. The different products or services of Yahoo include Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Mail and online mapping among others (Foss, 2012). The search market share of the company has been viewed to be 14.1 percent in the year 2012 (Incisive Interactive Marketing LLC., 2013).This study will help in contrasting the two companies on the context of organizational struct ure as well as design and culture (Willcoxson & et. al., 2000). Organisational

Long-term Purchasing Power Parity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Long-term Purchasing Power Parity - Essay Example The study compares the currency exchange factors between US Dollars ($) and Euro (â‚ ¬). The first part of the paper is a design of a framework for testing for the absolute PPP and relative PPP following monetary approach. The second part is a brief summary of the interest rate parity conditions and their underlying logics and implications. This displays the application of the exchange rate used in forward contracts differ from the current spot rate. The emphasis is on the reasons for difference between the forward rates and the future spot rate expected by investors.This study investigates the absolute and the relative PPP for international currencies including the US $ and the EURO in order to test the PPP hypothesis. The currencies support the PPP between the US and European Union with great emphasis considering that earlier studies refused to adopt the PPP hypothesis for the US and the EU countries (Mixon, 2005). Studies give evidence of the co-integration between the Euro and the US dollar rate as well as the prices of the two countries. The test for Long term PPP is conducted as an equilibrium connection using the multivariate co-integration method designed by Mixon.  This model allows various long-term links, short-term dynamics, and the adjustment certain regime shifts. If the short-term dynamics differ from the long-term links, the explicit measurement of the short-term dynamics is fundamental for a success in estimating the long-term relations of the time movement to the equilibrium.

EGT2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

EGT2 - Essay Example We can also say that as the income of a consumer will increase, he will consume less of those goods The coefficient of Cross-price elasticity helps us determine whether the good is complementary or substitute to one another and if the elasticity has negative sign it means that the goods are complementary. Where as if the goods are strong substitutes to each other then there will be a positive sign(this can be easily understand from the example given in part A that there is a positive relationship between price of Pepsi and quantity demand of coke). Similarly, when the elasticity is POSITIVE it means it is a normal good (luxury good). As your income will increase you will demand more branded goods. Instead of a normal coffee you would like to enjoy coffee from Starbucks, designer dresses and Rolex watches. The coefficient of income elasticity for inferior good is always negative. (As income and quantity demand moves in opposite direction). And positive for normal goods (income and quantity demand moves in same direction) All above elasticity of demand plays a significant role in understanding the behavior of consumer or individual under each scenario. We can also predict a possible outcome with the changes in either of the determinant. If the substitute for a particular product is open to a consumer, then the demand would be elastic which means that the increase in price of product ‘A’ will decrease its quantity demanded and people will be willing to consume more of the substitute good as it is cheaper than product ‘A’ and also provides equal utility and vice versa. We know that there is always a positive relationship between price of one good and quantity demanded of the substitute good. Hence if price of a good ‘A’ increases then the quantity demand of its substitute will also increase. The larger is the share of consumer’s budget to a particular good,

Observation Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Observation - Assignment Example After calling the pharmacy to consult on the use of aspirin during pregnancy, the following observations were made; the phone was answered after 3 minutes. First the phone was answered by machine, but after following the instructions, it was immediately re-directed to a real person who was fluent in English. The person who answered was very respectful and asked how they could help. After sharing the question, they requested to get some more background information first before proceeding to answer the question. The person was knowledgeable and helpful but seemed to follow a set of questions or a certain protocol while interacting. Out of five, Walgreen deserves to be ranked number three because of its proper services and adherence to protocol. The following recommendations would assist in fixing customer service deficiency; Walgreens contact centre provides its clients with access to a comprehensive array of medical services, all of which are offered through one phone call. In conventional consultation, one doctor is only able to cater for one specialty area, while the contact centre provides access to all the services available in the facility. This benefits the customer and improves their experience in using the services of Walgreens. Similar to the need of having well informed agents at the introductory point of contact in the hospital, the customer care agents have sufficient information on the operations of the hospital (Calvert, 2004). Walgreens customer care agents handle a wide range of cases and are able to perform different tasks over the phone while still communicating with the client. They can trace a client in the facility, schedule appointments with the doctor for the caller, among other crucial tasks. Contact centre staffs are regularly the first face of the medical facility. Walgreens customer care agents are well

Processed Food Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Processed Food - Essay Example In addition to this, their taste is almost always consistent. If we look at the process of manufacturing processed food, it can be divided into three basic processes. First is the raw material processing, which brings out the food in the form that is eaten. This is followed by packaging and finally transportation or logistics. Even though it sounds harmless, the process of manufacturing ready to eat meals has negative affects not only on the health of the consumers, but also on the environment. In the following essay, the use and production procedure of hamburger would be analyzed. The essay will show how producing a hamburger is accompanied by various processes which prove to be detrimental to the environment. Cheese is one of the condiments which always accompany a hamburger. Hardly any hamburger is eaten without cheese in it. Hilmar Cheese, a cheese production factory from California, has been in the business for over 20 years. As a result of its manufacturing process, the company has been constantly polluting both land and water. Approximately 2.5 million gallons of wastewater is discharged by the company every day. This water contains poisonous compounds like arsenic, barium compounds, nitrogen and other salts. Such elements are fatal to humans and animals. In addition to this, waste water from factories and production plants leads to two very serious types of pollutions, namely Barium pollution and arsenic pollution. The next component of a hamburger to be analyzed is the hamburger bun. These buns are made from wheat. With resources like land being limited, the same piece of land is irrigated repeatedly and its nutrition is exhausted. Over farming eventually leads to desertification. Since the same piece of land is irrigated repeatedly, it leads to over irrigation. This in turn leads to salinization. The farm land thus, gets covered with layers of salt. Most of the farming done

Women's rights in Afghanistan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Women's rights in Afghanistan - Essay Example It has also been noted that during the most favorable times in Afghanistan, the overall literacy rate was less than 20% amongst males and less than 5% amongst females; surprisingly considered by some to be optimistic. Against such a backdrop, the country plunged into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists in 1992. This was deemed as a misfortune for women's rights. The new government of the country pledged prompt action to improve the conditions of women. A report by the international women's organization, Womankind Worldwide reported that millions of Afghan women and girls continue to face prejudice and belligerence in their day-to-day lives. Now, it has been acknowledged by the Afghan women's rights groups that women in Afghanistan now have a variety of rights, which they were deprived of earlier. The major religion practiced throughout Afghanistan is Islam. This religion guarantees equal rights to men and women before their Lord and gives them various rights such the right to inheritance, the right to vote, the right to work, and even choose their own partners in marriage. This was practiced over 1400 years ago. But this is not the case observed in Afghanistan, neither now, nor earlier. Here women have been denied these rights either by official government decree or by their own husbands, fathers, and brothers, now for centuries, even though their religion permits them the same. 1996 to 2001 was the worst of all times experienced by the women in Afghanistan, or of any other society. Women were degraded, forbidden to work, leave the house without a male escort, not permitted to seek medical assistance from a male doctor, and were forced to coverthemselves from head to toe, so much so, that even their eyes were to be covered. The female doctors, teachers and other professional s were forced to beg and even become prostitutes just to support their families. Their social rights were snatched away and were badly encroached. The year 2001, brought a revolutionary change in the social, political and cultural condition of women in Afghanistan. According to the newly adopted constitution, women's rights were recognized and they were given equal rights and duties as males, before the law. Women were now allowed to get back to work and resume to their social lives. The obligation on wearing the all covering burqa, was relaxed and they were now respected and even appointed to prominent positions in the government. Despite all these changes, there still remain many challenges for the women of Afghanistan. (Qazi, n.d.) No Improvement in Women's Rights in Afghanistan It is evident that the women in Afghanistan are looked down upon and not given their due rights. Their right to full participation in social, economic, cultural and political life of the country was drastically truncated and soon summarily snatched and denied to them. Women were completely deprived of their birthright of getting education, of the right to work, of the right to travel, of the right to health, of the right to legal recourse, of the right to recreation, and of the right to being human. They were not allowed to travel in private vehicles with male passengers; they did not have the right to raise their

Processed Food Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Processed Food - Essay Example In addition to this, their taste is almost always consistent. If we look at the process of manufacturing processed food, it can be divided into three basic processes. First is the raw material processing, which brings out the food in the form that is eaten. This is followed by packaging and finally transportation or logistics. Even though it sounds harmless, the process of manufacturing ready to eat meals has negative affects not only on the health of the consumers, but also on the environment. In the following essay, the use and production procedure of hamburger would be analyzed. The essay will show how producing a hamburger is accompanied by various processes which prove to be detrimental to the environment. Cheese is one of the condiments which always accompany a hamburger. Hardly any hamburger is eaten without cheese in it. Hilmar Cheese, a cheese production factory from California, has been in the business for over 20 years. As a result of its manufacturing process, the company has been constantly polluting both land and water. Approximately 2.5 million gallons of wastewater is discharged by the company every day. This water contains poisonous compounds like arsenic, barium compounds, nitrogen and other salts. Such elements are fatal to humans and animals. In addition to this, waste water from factories and production plants leads to two very serious types of pollutions, namely Barium pollution and arsenic pollution. The next component of a hamburger to be analyzed is the hamburger bun. These buns are made from wheat. With resources like land being limited, the same piece of land is irrigated repeatedly and its nutrition is exhausted. Over farming eventually leads to desertification. Since the same piece of land is irrigated repeatedly, it leads to over irrigation. This in turn leads to salinization. The farm land thus, gets covered with layers of salt. Most of the farming done

Market structure and the determination of market price Essay

Market structure and the determination of market price - Essay Example On the other hand, an imperfect market is characterized by regulations limits the number of individuals selling products or services (White and Fraley, n.d.). The pharmaceutical industry is a highly regulated industry hence it presents a great level of imperfect competition. The imperfect competition in the pharmaceutical industry is found on the supply side of the market. There are so many regulations that follow before the product is introduced in the market. The bigwigs in the industry have already overcome the regulations hence focus on changing trends in the in the market. New entrants will always face challenges. In order to ensure that these pharmaceuticals do not fix prices, governments facilitate the adoption of bilateral monopolies as well as do bargaining to ensure the prices are regulated (White and Fraley, n.d.) Increase in the number of producers as well as elimination of regulations will facilitate the shift in the supply curve. However, the demand curve can also be affected when individuals opt for alternative medicine. Firstly, removal of regulations can facilitate the increase in the number of producers hence the shift in the supply curve. Secondly, lack of government bargaining can result to the pharmaceuticals overpricing since the demand for pharmaceuticals is constant. Finally, Use of alternative medicine can result to a shift in the demand curve because the consumption of pharmaceutical products is reduced (Guha, Lacy and Woodhouse, 2008).. Guha, R., Lacy, A. M. and Woodhouse, S.(2008). Analyzing competition in the Pharmaceutical industry. Economics Committee Newsletter, Vol 8 No.1. Retrieved on 30 January 2014 from http://www.cornerstone.com/getattachment/5f41372f-11ac-4f45-9f27-45b1dad16444/Analyzing-Competition-in-the-Pharmaceutical-Indust.aspx White, R. F. and Fraley, S. (n.d). Imperfect competition, price fairness and the pharmaceutical industry. Journal of Ethics, Vol 1, No 2. Retrieved on 30 January 2014 from

The three demands of being a college student Essay Example for Free

The three demands of being a college student Essay Modern life offers great opportunities for college graduates. That is why receiving college education is very important in today’s fast dynamic world. However, studying in college puts a lot of responsibilities on the shoulders of students, because they have to experience an increased level of academic requirements and competition, which make them feel more responsible for their actions, achievements, progress and even failures. Since college environment is completely different than the one of high school, studying in college requires from the students to use more skills than they used in high school. Therefore, attending college is more demanding, because students need to learn how to manage their time, strengthen their reading skills, as well as improve their social skills. First of all, effective time management in college is very important for students to be successful. In high school, teachers try to be easy on students with the due dates of the assignments or with students’ being late for the classes. However, in college, teachers tend to set everything in stone. For example, all college students are required to submit their assignments and projects on time. They also have to be in their classes on time whenever exams are held. Not following these guidelines can cause a lot of problems for the students who want to receive high final ratings. Moreover, college requires the students to complete full taken credits successfully. So, for students to do well in college, it is necessary to know how to manage their time properly. Another important demand of being a college student is developing strong reading skills. In college, the majority of classes require students to read in order to understand the lectures throughout the semester. For example, my History 10 class fully depends on reading the textbook in order to understand the lectures given in the class. Also, college teachers require their students to read some specific textbooks, so the students can participate in the graded in-class discussions. That is why college students have to keep in mind that reading is one of the paramount necessities because it helps to achieve good academic success and a great number of their other personal goals. And, finally, most classes in college require students to work in groups for setting a competition among classmates and making the students to receive better results. In order to perform a group work students need to know how to socialize and establish good personal connections with the classmates. Strong social skills help college students to participate in various team projects and receive good reward from such work. Besides, when a student knows how to communicate with his classmates and to convince them of his point of view, he will have a great opportunity to feel more comfortable in social environment of the college. This means that socializing also helps students to be successful and demonstrate great academic performance in college. Therefore, the demands of being a college student are quite different than usual demands for high school students. In college, every student has to learn time management, reading skills, and social skills because those abilities are very helpful for every student to get through the last stage of his or her academic life. Nevertheless, college students should keep in mind that their experience and knowledge received in high school are crucial and very important, because everything they learned during their high school times will help them a lot to progress, advance, get good grades, win a good reputation, and make their years of studying in college bright and interesting.

Optimum Currency Area (OCA) Theory

Optimum Currency Area (OCA) Theory What criteria did Mundell use to identify an optimum currency area and how relevant are these criteria today in deciding whether two countries constitute an optimum currency area? An Optimum Currency Area (OCA) is a geographical region in which maximise economic efficiency is attained by the entire region sharing a single currency (a monetary union), or by several currencies pegging to each other via a fixed exchange rate. National authorities have come to the realisation that by merging with other countries to share a currency, everyone might benefit from gains in economic efficiency. An example of this can be seen in the formation of the euro where the countries involved do not individually match the criteria of an OCA, but believe that together they come close. The aim of national authorities is to establish the correct form of economic integration to maximise efficiency. One of the original founders of the OCA theory was economist Robert Mundell. In his first paper ‘A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas (1961) he presented several principal criteria to create a functioning monetary union. To support these criteria for an OCA I shall on occasion refer to an example of consumer preferences switching from French to German-made products by Paul De Grauwe (2003). The change in consumer preferences will cause an upward shift in aggregate demand in Germany and a downward shift in France as shown in 1 below. The output decline in France and increase in Germany is most likely to cause unemployment to increase in France but decrease in Germany. The first of the criteria for an OCA is price and wage flexibility throughout the geographical area. This means that the market forces of supply and demand automatically distribute money and goods to where they are needed. For example, with regards to France and Germany under perfect wage flexibility, the unemployed workers in France will reduce their wage claims, and conversely excess demand for labour in Germany will push up the wage rate. This inevitably shifts aggregate supply for France outwards making French products more competitive, and stimulating demand, whereas the opposite occurs for Germany. 2 below shows the effect of wage flexibility as an automatic adjustment mechanism. Mundell cited the importance of factor mobility as an â€Å"essential ingredient of a common currency† (Mundell, 1961) and thus labour mobility across the geographical region is one of Mundells main criteria for an OCA. In the case of De Grauwes example, French unemployed workers would move to Germany where there is excess demand for labour. This free movement of labour eliminates the need to let wages decline in France and increase in Germany solving both the unemployment problem in France, and the inflationary wage pressures in Germany. The existence of labour mobility relies on the unrealistic assumptions of free movement of workers between regions regardless of physical barriers such as work permits, cultural barriers such as language difficulties and institutional barriers such as superannuation transferrals. Indeed Peter Kenen referred to the additional costs of retraining workers and there is an â€Å"unrealistic assumption of perfect occupational mobilityâ€Å"(Kenen, 1969). Ronald McKinnon observed that â€Å"in practice this does not work perfectly as there is no true wage flexibility† (McKinnon, 1979). McKinnon is simply highlighting the point that in reality wage flexibility, as well as perfect labour and capital mobility do not always exist. Considering a case where wages in France do not decline despite the unemployment situation (no wage flexibility), and French workers do not move to Germany (no labour mobility) both Germany and France would be stuck in the original position of disequilibrium. In Germany the excess demand for labour would put pressure on the wage rate, causing an upward shift in the supply curve. The adjustment from the position of disequilibrium would in this case come exclusively from price increases in Germany making French goods more competitive once more. Therefore if wage flexibility and labour mobility does not exist then the adjustment process will be entirely reliant on inflation in Germany. Mundell stated product diversification over the geographical area is an important determinant of the suitability for a region to share a currency. This has been supported by many economists, such as Peter Kenen who says â€Å"groups of countries with diversified domestic production are more likely to constitute optimum currency areas than groups whose members are highly specialised† (Kenen, 1969). Finally Mundell stated that an automatic fiscal transfer mechanism is required to redistribute money to sectors with adverse affects from labour and capital mobility. This usually takes the form of taxation redistribution to less developed areas of the OCA. Whilst this is theoretically ideal and necessary, in practice it is extremely difficult to get the well off regions of the OCA to give away their wealth. Mundell produced two models in relation to OCA theory. In the first, under a model of Stationary Expectations (SE), he takes a pessimistic view towards monetary integration, however in his second paper he counters this, and focuses on the benefits of a monetary union under the model of International Risk Sharing (IRS), which has conversely been used to argue for the forming of monetary unions. ‘The Theory of Optimal Currency Areas paper by Mundell in 1961 portrays OCAs under stationary expectations. The assumption is made that asymmetric shocks undermine the real economy and thus flexible exchange rates are considered preferable because a shared monetary policy would not be precisely tuned for the specific situation of each constituent region. This paper led to the formation of the Mundell-Fleming Model of an open economy which has been used to argue against the forming of monetary unions as an economy cannot simultaneously maintain a fixed exchange rate, free capital movement, and an independent monetary policy. Whilst the Mundells criteria for an OCA is held in high regard my many economists, there are some criticisms levelled at him. Capital mobility is seen to have been a â€Å"greater adjustment mechanism than labour mobility† (Eichengreen, 1990) and this is a factor John Ingram criticises Mundell for ignoring. Clearly the openness of the region to capital mobility is crucial to the makeup of an OCA, as for trade to exist between participating regions, free movement of capital is necessary. However in the years that followed his 1961 paper on OCAs Mundell realised the criticisms of his previous paper and began to doubt the basic argument for flexible exchange rates as an adjustment mechanism. He became more appreciative of the adjustment mechanism under fixed exchange rates, â€Å"It was not that I had forgotten the Mundell-Fleming model, but that I had gone beyond it† (Mundell, 1997). In Mundells 1973 paper, ‘Uncommon Arguments for Common Currencies, he discarded his earlier assumption of static expectations to look at how future uncertainty about the exchange rate could disrupt the capital markets by restraining international portfolio diversification and risk-sharing. Here he introduces his second model of OCAs under IRS. He counters his previous idea that asymmetric shocks weaken the case for a common currency by suggesting that a common currency can reduce such shocks by sharing the burden of loss. He uses the example of two countries, Capricorn and Ca ncer. In spring, Cancer ships half of its crop to Capricorn and in return it receives evidence of Capricorns debt, a claim to half of Capricorns food crop in autumn. While one country is expanding its money supply and running a balance of payments surplus, the other will be running a balance of payments deficit, and the process is reversed during the next period. Mundell points out that this system is very satisfactory in a world of certainty, however in reality there is speculation about the convertibility of foreign currencies. If Cancer had a bad harvest and produced less crop, to redeem all of notes from the Capricorn would involve providing them with their promised share of crop as usual, leaving Cancer short. The only defence against paying out the promised share of crop would be a devaluation of Cancers currency and thus a reduction in the claim by Capricorn on the crop. Capricorn needs to get enough crops to survive and produce food in the autumn, so Cancer will not also be left short on supplies in the next period. The solution would appear to be a partial devaluation of Cancers currency, so that the burden of loss would be shared between the two countries. Mundell has shown that with different currencies comes the uncertainty of devaluation, a problem which a common currency would not have. Under a common â€Å"world† currency if Cancer has a bad crop the total amount of world currency will exchange for full quantity of crop, irrespective of who holds the money as competition and freedom of arbitrage assures a single price. So long as competition exists, and there are no time lags in the transmission of goods or information, the price of the food will rise for both countries and so the burden of shock is shared automatically and equally by the two countries. To reconcile Mundells two papers and assess the appropriateness the criteria on determining two countries suitability as a currency area I have decided to look at the case of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and its success as a monetary union. There are many examples of countries within Europe that would struggle to maintain international competitiveness without the currency area. The areas of the EU with low labour mobility are furthest away from meeting the criteria of a currency area. However, while the removal of legal barriers (such as visas) has improved this labour mobility, issues such as language barriers remain, for example, a French worker may not wish to move to Spain because they cannot speak Spanish, also people tend to have ties to the places they currently live and may not be willing to move away from them. Bayoumi and Eichengreen (1992) compared the US and Europe with respect to how disturbances in separate regions match shocks in a selected benchmark region. They chose Germany as the benchmark for Europe and found that there is a relatively high symmetry of disturbances within the core of the EU such as Austria, Benelux, Denmark, France and Germany. They also found that the symmetry was lower for western European countries. When compared to the USA, the EMU had a higher probability of asymmetric shocks. However according to Fidrmuc and Korhonen (2001) the extent of the asymmetric shocks is declining in the EU economies. Bayoumi and Eichengreen believe that countries within Europe are further from an OCA than regions in the USA, and so are less appropriate as a currency area. These studies suggest that two countries in the EU are less suited to forming a monetary union than the regions of the USA, although the situation is improving. Frankel and Rose (1998) argued that the higher the trade integration, the higher the correlation of the business cycles among countries, in other words there is greater symmetry of shocks. They also propose that business cycles and trade integration are inter-related and endogenous processes to establishing a currency union. Frankel and Roses empirical findings noted that EMU entry encourages trade linkages among countries and causes the business cycle t o be more symmetrical among the unions participants. Rose and Stanley (2005) find that a common currency generally increases trade among its members between 30% and 90%. These findings agree with Mundells argument that a common currency can help to deal with asymmetrical shocks. Frankel and Roses findings suggest that although two countries considering creating a common currency may not meet the criteria before they join the currency area they may do afterwards. Economists are divided in opinion between Mundells two OCA models. The contrasting views which Mundell presents in his papers have earned him a title as â€Å"the intellectual father to both sides of the debate†. While some economists support the theory of stationary expectations, preferring flexible exchange rates, and conclude against the euro, others advocate the IRS model, preferring the fixed exchange rate, and conclude in favour of the euro. Mundell himself seems to have eventually settled in favour fixed exchange rates in a monetary union however he does still advocate the use of flexible exchange rates in two cases. In the case of unstable countries, whose inflation differs significant from its currency sharing regions and in large countries where there is no established international monetary system, e.g. the USA. From Mundells studies I can conclude that two countries which are heavily integrated through highly mobile factors of production which are highly diversifie d in their goods should join a common currency. With regard to the relevance of Mundells theory today I would say his studies are still valid and used heavily as complementary theory to monetary integration occurring in Europe and throughout the world. References Robert Mundell ‘A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas, 1961 ‘Uncommon Arguments for Common Currencies p. 115, 1973 A Conference on Optimum Currency Areas at Tel-Aviv University, 5th December 1997 Paul De Grauwe ‘Economics of Monetary Union p. 7, 2003) Robert McKinnon ‘Money in International Exchange: The Convertible Currency System, 1979 Peter Kenen ‘The theory of Optimum Currency Areas: an Eclectic view‘, 1969 ‘Monetary Problems of the International Economy, 1969, pp. 95-100 Barry Eichengreen ‘One Money for Europe? Lessons from the US Currency Union, 1990 ‘Is Europe an Optimal Currency Area, 1991 J. Fidrmuc I. Korhonen ‘Similarity of supply and demand shocks between the Euro area and the CEECs, 2001 J. A. Frankel A. K. Rose The Endogeneity of the Optimum Currency Area Criteria pp. 1009-25, Jul 1998 A. K. Rose T. D. Stanley ‘A Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Common Currencies on International Trade, pp 347-365, 2005

Civilization: Savagery, Power, Fear :: Free Essay Writer

Civilization: Savagery, Power, Fear Civilization is when man meets his basic needs. Civilization begins to form when man is searching for something more; something better than just meeting his basic needs, for he has already achieved this. Civilization forms slowly and carefully, and once it is formed, it can change and be destroyed at any moment. Civilization is as fragile as an eggshell, and it has three basic forces that can destroy it: savagery, power, and fear. Savagery is when a people revert back to their lost human instincts. Savagery is most often found in situations where the people are under extreme circumstances. One example of this is being stranded on a deserted tropical island. In William Golding's book, Lord of the Flies, he has done just that. Golding had his characters revert back to their lost human instincts. When the boys on the island finally catch a pig and get meat, the one hunter, and main character, Jack, cannot bear to let someone else tell his savage story. He begins, "We spread round. I crept, on hands and knees. The spears fell out because they hadn't barbs on. The pig ran away and made an awful noise-It turned back and ran into the circle, bleeding-We closed in-I cut the pig's throat-" (p. 74-75). Jack has reverted back to savage, uncivilized ways; his civilization has been shattered because of being stranded. Jack even gets the rest of the boys to join in, "As they danced, they sang. `Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in.'" Savagery can destroy civilization. It only takes a small number, even a single person, to revert back, and everyone will soon follow. Another example of people being savage is in the book, The Pearl, by John Steinbeck. In this book, when a family finds an unbelievably large pearl and tries to better their own lives with it, their friends and neighbors become their enemies, they even begin to fight in their own family. Greed has caused the family and the townsfolk to revert back to being savages. One example of this is when Juana, the wife, tries to rid them of the pearl because she knows of its bad nature. Kino, her husband, catches her, "Her arm was up to throw when he leaped at her arm and wrenched the pearl from her. He struck her in the face with his clenched fist and she fell among the boulders, and

School Uniforms

Why School Uniforms? School uniforms are widely used in public schools. Despite disagreements among parents, students, and the school districts, school officials cite many reasons for students to wear school uniforms. Those reasons usually include the following: the uniforms are cheaper for parents, students wearing the same clothes decreases school fights, and students can receive a better education in the secure environment uniforms creates. Some students and parents disagree because wearing uniforms is not pleasing to them and does not alleviate traditional school problems.It makes students depressed because they cannot express themselves, they are forced to look like others, and it takes the fun out of school. What really happens when students are all dressed the same? Students’ creativity is hindered, and they are unable to show their individuality. Students should be able to express themselves through their clothes and not be forced to wear uniforms. Clothes are an expre ssion of a student’s personality. By suppressing their opportunity to show their unique personalities, schools are teaching that uniformity is more valuable than individuality. School uniforms send a clear early-life message to students that conformity is important and creativity is not† (youdebate. com). Geeks, for example, might express themselves by wearing thick glasses, suspenders and long socks. On the other hand, outgoing students might wear vibrant colors and outlandish fashion. Then, there are shy children, who might choose to wear long clothing and mostly black. These are just a few examples of students dressing according to certain categories with which they might identify themselves.The possibilities of individually expressing oneself through clothes are infinite. However, uniforms stifle these possibilities; they keep students from expressing their personality. Uniforms also can cause an undo financial burden. Parents have to buy uniforms for when students are in school and street clothes for when they are not. Angelfire. com says uniforms ultimately cost more. Students change into street clothes after school, and they wear them on weekends. During summer months, students will revert to traditional street clothes.Additionally, students will prefer designer street clothes when not in school. Therefore, parents purchase two sets of clothing, and many families cannot afford this. It is cheaper for the parents to buy only regular street clothes. Despite claims uniforms are worth a little extra money to eliminate issues such as bullying and social cliques, putting children in uniforms does not resolve social issues in school. It only treats the symptoms. â€Å"Cliques will still form,† and students will still make judgments on each other based on hair styles, height, weight, and odor (www. angelfire. com).The only true way to resolve such problems is to teach tolerance and appreciation of diversity. Instead of forcing students to we ar uniforms, educators should teach students how to respect and accept each other, despite their differences in body type, fashion, hair style, color, or any other thing that might otherwise divide the student body. This would bring an end to many social problems that develop in schools and also make students more productive members of society when they finish school. While schools hail uniforms as making school safer, it could cause a safety problem in the event of a security breech.In an event of an emergency, it will be hard to identify a certain student because they will all be dressed the same. Randy from youdebate. com states the following: â€Å"I am totally against school uniforms! One reason, of many, is safety of the students. For example: During a natural disaster (God Forbid) Earthquake, Tornado, etc,†¦ How would a parent i. d. their child? By the clothes that they are wearing, when they left home. What if a senior decided to attack a 9th or 10th grade student. How would the victim describe the attacker? Let’s see, Khaki Pants- Navy Blue Shirt- Brown Shoes. You get the picture.This was, is and will ALWAYS BE A VERY BAD idea. † No school can prevent 100 percent of security breeches. â€Å"It is impossible to prevent all outside intrusion† (angelfire. com). However, uniforms can make it easier for outsiders to enter a school campus. If an outsider is dressed in the traditional school uniform, teachers and administrators might overlook them as a member of the student body. Uniforms are touted as a solution to security problems when they actually can add to the problem. Schools have no valid reasons to put students in uniforms, and commonly cited reasons for uniforms are invalid.While proponents of uniforms argue they resolve social problems, they can contribute to social problems in that they take away students’ ability to express their individuality through clothing. Encouraging such conformity over individuality duri ng school years is a mistake. Also, parents have to shoulder the financial burden of buying uniforms in addition to street clothes, which they will also have to purchase. School districts may tout uniforms as a safer alternative to students wearing street clothes, but the uniformity can make it easier for outsiders to infiltrate the school and also can cause confusion in the event of an emergency.School districts present an impressive argument for school uniforms, saying they can decrease bullying, save parents money and heighten security. However, when the facts are considered, these arguments do not hold true. Preserving parents’ pocket books and students’ right to self expression by allowing them to wear street clothes to school and teaching tolerance are a much better alternative to the conformity and expense of school uniforms.Works Cited â€Å"School Uniform Debate and Poll. † 7 Sept 2010. www. youdebate. com. WEB. â€Å"Arguments about Uniforms. † 7 Sept 2010. www. angelfire. com . WEB. School Uniforms Is it better to let things continue in their horrible condition or change them for the better? The issue of school uniforms has been argued for decades with many different ideas and no final conclusion. However, school uniforms would reduce some major problems such as the school district’s budget problem, school bullying, and gang-related violence. The addition of school uniforms would benefit the school of San Jacinto High School. California’s bad economy affects the school district and everyone in it.Hundreds of dollars are wasted, when parents and students buy school clothes, it would be better to buy more affordable school uniform. Many people fall deeply into debt because they overspend on clothes, but if school uniforms were made available, that problem would be eliminated. The uniforms could also be passed down from sibling to sibling if needed. Right now, the school is not even able to give teachers enough paper, it would benefit them to sell school uniforms to make some money.So why not just make school uniforms mandatory and save tons of money? Another problem that school uniforms would eliminate is bullying based on appearance. Every day someone is discriminated due to what clothes they wear. Some people can afford to spend money on nice clothes and some cannot, but people should not be harassed for it. Everyone wearing the same clothes would promote equality, something that schools desperately need at the moment. With fashion out of the way students could better concentrate on their studies.While school uniforms may reduce individuality, in the long run it would benefit those on the receiving end of bullying. Perhaps the best outcomes school uniforms would create is that of gang violence. Gangs usually identify themselves and other gangs by what they wear. However, if everyone happened to be wearing the same thing, it would be harder for gang fights to take place. In 1994, California’s Long Beach Unified School District started requiring the use of school uniforms. In the following decade, gang violence and school crime in that area had dramatically reduced by 76%.To cap it all school attendance had even reached its highest point. More schools should follow their example and end school crime. The school district is now one step away from greatly improving school life for everyone. All in all school uniforms would greatly benefit the school district and everyone in it. Saving money, stopping bullying, and getting rid of gang violence and inappropriate clothing are definitely things the school needs right now. So don’t just stand there, make your voices heard and support school uniforms! School Uniforms â€Å"School uniforms are one step that may help the cycle of violence, truancy and disorder by helping young students understand what really counts is what kind of people they are. † This quote was made by former president Bill Clinton. In the article ‘Should kids wear school uniforms? ’, talks about how school uniforms can benefit students and how some think school uniforms are irrelevant. There are many benefits of wearing school uniforms; they increase students’ self-esteem, improve discipline, and save families time and money.School uniforms can increase a student’s self-esteem, which veers attention upon learning and away from such distractions as fashion competition and gang intimidation. With a student having confidence of what they are wearing improves behavior and increases school attendance. It is also more economical and convenient way to avoid discrimination and teasing within the school for who dress better or worse. A child who is not able to use higher-quality clothing will not feel different or inferior to others. The uniform, as the name says, unifying models and styles and can even encourage self-esteem and help everyone feel equal.Dress affects attitude and behavior. Children generally act the way they are dressed. Children with uniforms come to school to work. School is then seen as a workplace for teaching and learning. It is not seen as a battleground, playground, or fashion stage. On the other hand, some argue and say it violates the right to freedom of expression and does not create diversity. Uniforms restrict learners are that â€Å"without the outlet of expression in their clothes, students may turn to inappropriate hair styles, jewelry, or makeup† (Public School Uniforms).So by restricting students of their clothing choice, they will still find a way to show their personality in their hair, jewelry, and hairstyles. Although a uniform can get boring with the same clothes and same color every d ay, uniforms have proven to lower hostility in many schools. Uniforms have reduced tardiness, skipped classes, suspensions, and discipline referrals. According to the Public School Review, in the Long Beach school district within one year of launching uniforms, fights and muggings had seriously dwindled by fifty percent. While committed sexual offenses were massively diminished as well by a vast seventy-four percent.Uniforms reduce violence is that if an outsider were to enter a school, the intruder would be spotted immediately, as teachers and police would arrive to dispose of the stranger that might be a harm to the students. One may argue and say school uniforms merely put a Band-Aid on the problem of school violence and fail to address the real issues behind it. Also, it won’t matter what you are wearing, people are still going to be judged and bullied. Most bullies believe they can have power over a weaker, smaller, younger, and less confident person.Bullies will be ther e regardless of fashion. School uniforms are a bargain. They are becoming far less expensive than many other clothes. Schools argue that school uniforms are economical, especially compared to designer clothing, and parents agree given school uniform durability. Some say school uniforms last longer because they are made for repeated wash and wear. Many schools capitalize on this by starting used school uniform stores or swap meets. Parents can get used school uniforms at discount prices, or just use them as hand-me-downs between siblings.Many will argue with this. Some will say that uniforms can cost more than regular, everyday clothing. Also, uniforms can be uncomfortable to wear outside of school. Meaning, parents have to buy separate clothes for outside of school. By having to buy two different wardrobes costs families more money and time. All in all, while children believe that the school is trying to control their freedom of speech by enforcing uniforms, a school is not a fashio n show. It is there to educate children and help them get into a college and a worthwhile future career. School Uniforms Why School Uniforms? School uniforms are widely used in public schools. Despite disagreements among parents, students, and the school districts, school officials cite many reasons for students to wear school uniforms. Those reasons usually include the following: the uniforms are cheaper for parents, students wearing the same clothes decreases school fights, and students can receive a better education in the secure environment uniforms creates. Some students and parents disagree because wearing uniforms is not pleasing to them and does not alleviate traditional school problems.It makes students depressed because they cannot express themselves, they are forced to look like others, and it takes the fun out of school. What really happens when students are all dressed the same? Students’ creativity is hindered, and they are unable to show their individuality. Students should be able to express themselves through their clothes and not be forced to wear uniforms. Clothes are an expre ssion of a student’s personality. By suppressing their opportunity to show their unique personalities, schools are teaching that uniformity is more valuable than individuality. School uniforms send a clear early-life message to students that conformity is important and creativity is not† (youdebate. com). Geeks, for example, might express themselves by wearing thick glasses, suspenders and long socks. On the other hand, outgoing students might wear vibrant colors and outlandish fashion. Then, there are shy children, who might choose to wear long clothing and mostly black. These are just a few examples of students dressing according to certain categories with which they might identify themselves.The possibilities of individually expressing oneself through clothes are infinite. However, uniforms stifle these possibilities; they keep students from expressing their personality. Uniforms also can cause an undo financial burden. Parents have to buy uniforms for when students are in school and street clothes for when they are not. Angelfire. com says uniforms ultimately cost more. Students change into street clothes after school, and they wear them on weekends. During summer months, students will revert to traditional street clothes.Additionally, students will prefer designer street clothes when not in school. Therefore, parents purchase two sets of clothing, and many families cannot afford this. It is cheaper for the parents to buy only regular street clothes. Despite claims uniforms are worth a little extra money to eliminate issues such as bullying and social cliques, putting children in uniforms does not resolve social issues in school. It only treats the symptoms. â€Å"Cliques will still form,† and students will still make judgments on each other based on hair styles, height, weight, and odor (www. angelfire. com).The only true way to resolve such problems is to teach tolerance and appreciation of diversity. Instead of forcing students to we ar uniforms, educators should teach students how to respect and accept each other, despite their differences in body type, fashion, hair style, color, or any other thing that might otherwise divide the student body. This would bring an end to many social problems that develop in schools and also make students more productive members of society when they finish school. While schools hail uniforms as making school safer, it could cause a safety problem in the event of a security breech.In an event of an emergency, it will be hard to identify a certain student because they will all be dressed the same. Randy from youdebate. com states the following: â€Å"I am totally against school uniforms! One reason, of many, is safety of the students. For example: During a natural disaster (God Forbid) Earthquake, Tornado, etc,†¦ How would a parent i. d. their child? By the clothes that they are wearing, when they left home. What if a senior decided to attack a 9th or 10th grade student. How would the victim describe the attacker? Let’s see, Khaki Pants- Navy Blue Shirt- Brown Shoes. You get the picture.This was, is and will ALWAYS BE A VERY BAD idea. † No school can prevent 100 percent of security breeches. â€Å"It is impossible to prevent all outside intrusion† (angelfire. com). However, uniforms can make it easier for outsiders to enter a school campus. If an outsider is dressed in the traditional school uniform, teachers and administrators might overlook them as a member of the student body. Uniforms are touted as a solution to security problems when they actually can add to the problem. Schools have no valid reasons to put students in uniforms, and commonly cited reasons for uniforms are invalid.While proponents of uniforms argue they resolve social problems, they can contribute to social problems in that they take away students’ ability to express their individuality through clothing. Encouraging such conformity over individuality duri ng school years is a mistake. Also, parents have to shoulder the financial burden of buying uniforms in addition to street clothes, which they will also have to purchase. School districts may tout uniforms as a safer alternative to students wearing street clothes, but the uniformity can make it easier for outsiders to infiltrate the school and also can cause confusion in the event of an emergency.School districts present an impressive argument for school uniforms, saying they can decrease bullying, save parents money and heighten security. However, when the facts are considered, these arguments do not hold true. Preserving parents’ pocket books and students’ right to self expression by allowing them to wear street clothes to school and teaching tolerance are a much better alternative to the conformity and expense of school uniforms.Works Cited â€Å"School Uniform Debate and Poll. † 7 Sept 2010. www. youdebate. com. WEB. â€Å"Arguments about Uniforms. † 7 Sept 2010. www. angelfire. com . WEB. School Uniforms Is it better to let things continue in their horrible condition or change them for the better? The issue of school uniforms has been argued for decades with many different ideas and no final conclusion. However, school uniforms would reduce some major problems such as the school district’s budget problem, school bullying, and gang-related violence. The addition of school uniforms would benefit the school of San Jacinto High School. California’s bad economy affects the school district and everyone in it.Hundreds of dollars are wasted, when parents and students buy school clothes, it would be better to buy more affordable school uniform. Many people fall deeply into debt because they overspend on clothes, but if school uniforms were made available, that problem would be eliminated. The uniforms could also be passed down from sibling to sibling if needed. Right now, the school is not even able to give teachers enough paper, it would benefit them to sell school uniforms to make some money.So why not just make school uniforms mandatory and save tons of money? Another problem that school uniforms would eliminate is bullying based on appearance. Every day someone is discriminated due to what clothes they wear. Some people can afford to spend money on nice clothes and some cannot, but people should not be harassed for it. Everyone wearing the same clothes would promote equality, something that schools desperately need at the moment. With fashion out of the way students could better concentrate on their studies.While school uniforms may reduce individuality, in the long run it would benefit those on the receiving end of bullying. Perhaps the best outcomes school uniforms would create is that of gang violence. Gangs usually identify themselves and other gangs by what they wear. However, if everyone happened to be wearing the same thing, it would be harder for gang fights to take place. In 1994, California’s Long Beach Unified School District started requiring the use of school uniforms. In the following decade, gang violence and school crime in that area had dramatically reduced by 76%.To cap it all school attendance had even reached its highest point. More schools should follow their example and end school crime. The school district is now one step away from greatly improving school life for everyone. All in all school uniforms would greatly benefit the school district and everyone in it. Saving money, stopping bullying, and getting rid of gang violence and inappropriate clothing are definitely things the school needs right now. So don’t just stand there, make your voices heard and support school uniforms!

Aqr Delta Strategy Essay

DANIEL BERGSTRESSER LAUREN COHEN RANDOLPH COHEN CHRISTOPHER MALLOY AQR’s DELTA Strategy In the summer of 2011, the principals at AQR Capital Management met in their Greenwich, CT, office to decide how best to market their new DELTA strategy. After launching in the late summer of 2008, the DELTA strategy had compiled an excellent track record, but David Kabiller, a Founding Principal and the Head of Client Strategies at AQR, was frustrated that the fund had not grown faster in light of its exceptional performance. In Kabiller’s experience, the combination of a solid track record plus an innovative product usually led to explosive growth in assets under management (AUM), but that had not been the case so far with DELTA. The DELTA strategy was a product that offered investors exposure to a basket of nine major hedge fund strategies. The DELTA strategy was innovative in two ways. First, in terms of its structure, AQR implemented the underlying strategies using a well-defined investment process, with the goal of delivering exposure to a well-diversified portfolio of hedge fund strategies. Second, in terms of its fees, the new DELTA strategy charged relatively lower fees: 1 percent management fees plus 10 percent of performance over a cash hurdle (or, alternatively, a management fee of 2 percent only). This fee structure was low relative to the industry, where 2 percent management fees plus 20 percent of performance, often with no hurdle, was standard. These features, while distinct relative to other related â€Å"hedge fund replication† products, had yet to fully resonate with investors, and Kabiller needed to decide on a more effective marketing approach given the large number of competitors entering this space. AQR AQR was established in 1998 and headquartered in Greenwich, CT. The founding Principals of the firm included Clifford Asness, David Kabiller, Robert Krail, and John Liew, who had all worked together at Goldman Sachs Asset Management before leaving to start AQR. Asness, Krail, and Liew had all met in the Finance PhD program at the University of Chicago, where Asness’ dissertation had focused on momentum investing. AQR’s over 200 employees managed $24.0 Billion in assets. A large amount of these assets were invested in hedge fund strategies. Professors Daniel Bergstresser (HBS), Lauren Cohen (HBS), Randolph Cohen (MIT), and Christopher Malloy (HBS) prepared this case. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. Copyright  © 2011, 2012 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-5457685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to www.hbsp.harvard.edu/educators. This publication may not be digitized, photocopied, or otherwise reproduced, posted, or transmitted, without the permission of Harvard Business School. 212-038 AQR’s DELTA Strategy Hedge funds Voor- en nadelen Hedge Fund: While open-end mutual funds had to register with the SEC, calculate and publish daily net asset values (NAVs), and provide investors with daily liquidity, hedge funds were not automatically regulated by the SEC and enjoyed as much flexibility as they could negotiate with their clients with respect to liquidity. In exchange for this light-touch regulation, hedge funds were restricted in their marketing: only high net worth and institutional investors could directly invest in these funds. Nevertheless, academic work had by the late 1990s established that hedge funds offered a risk exposure that was less correlated with broad market indexes than most mutual funds, and potentially offered high risk-adjusted returns. The performance of the hedge fund industry during the 2001-2002 recession was  particularly good; Exhibit 1 shows that while stock market indices (S&P and NASDAQ) fell dramatically during this period, broad hedge fund indices (e.g., DJCS_Hedge and HFRI_FW, which were designed to track the overall performance of the hedge fund industry) rose. In response to the perception that hedge funds truly offered outperformance, institutional money flowed into hedge funds during the late 1990s and 2000s, and the size of the industry grew rapidly. Exhibit 2 charts the growth in the number of funds and total AUM (assets under management) in the hedge fund industry since 1997. With this growth in assets and managers, questions began to surface about the role of hedge funds in a portfolio and whether there were other ways to capture those returns without being exposed to some of the negatives of hedge fund investing. Alternatives to hedge funds Although many investors were attracted to the possibility of obtaining high returns and/or low covariance with other investments in their portfolio, many still found hedge funds themselves to be unappealing. Among the reasons for their distaste were: a) illiquidity, b) minimum investment requirements, c) high fees, d) the difficulty of selecting the right hedge fund manager, e) the inability to gain access to high quality funds, and f) the lack of established benchmarks in the industry. Most hedge funds only allowed redemptions on certain dates – often at the end of each quarter. Additionally many funds had an initial lockup – that is, investors could not redeem from the fund for a set period after investing; the period was often one year though some funds had no lockup and others had locked up investors for as long as five years. Most funds also had a minimum investment size of at least $1 million. In addition, many investors found the fees charged by hedge funds, which often amounted to 2% of assets under management (some funds even charged the full cost of their operations to their funds, amounting to more than 2% management fees) plus an additional 20% of profits generated by the fund, to be excessive and hoped to obtain similar benefits at a lower cost. Some investors also found the idea of selecting a portfolio from the many thousands of available hedge funds to be an intimidating task, especially given the lack of transparency (both as to investment process and holdings) that was common among hedge fund managers. And of course even if  an investor could identify a set of funds that made up an attractive portfolio, the managers of those funds might not accept an investment at that time or from that investor. Finally, in contrast to the mutual fund industry, there was a lack of established benchmarks fo r hedge funds, making it difficult to assess skill versus luck and idiosyncratic versus systematic returns. While hedge fund indices existed, these were just peer groups, not true benchmarks, and were biased by a number of things, including style drift and survivorship bias. In response to these criticisms, alternative products were soon introduced into the marketplace. 2 AQR’s DELTA Strategy 212-038 Funds of Hedge Funds (FOFs) One popular alternative to direct hedge fund investing was the funds of hedge funds (FOFs) structure. FOFs aimed to take investors’ money and allocate it among a select group of hedge funds – sometimes among a small number (even in the single digits in some cases), and sometimes among hundreds of funds. onerous= burdensome/ heavy This approach solved a number of the issues facing hedge fund investors, especially those with modest capital. FOFs had less onerous liquidity rules than individual hedge funds, and FOFs were less likely to encounter liquidity problems than individual funds since they could obtain liquidity from a number of underlying funds. Still, FOFs were ultimately subject to the underlying liquidity (both with respect to liquidity terms and underlying holdings) of the funds they were investing in. In addition, a single minimum investment bought a portfolio of many funds, and an experienced and hopefully expert financial professional, or team of such professionals, selected the funds, and chose allocations among them that (presumably) produced a well-optimized portfolio. Finally, FOF managers  claimed that their experience and connections provided access to hard-to-enter funds. Thus FOFs presented an appealing package, and indeed close to half of all money invested in hedge funds came through F OFs. However, many investors were put off by FOF fees, which historically included an additional layer of fees often as high as half the level of hedge fund fees themselves (thus making total fees paid about 1.5 times higher than for direct investing). Multi-strategy Funds Another approach to obtaining an alternative-investment portfolio while avoiding some of the challenges of one-strategy-at-a-time creation was to invest in multi-strategy hedge funds. Such offerings were often made by large hedge fund firms that offered a variety of individual strategies. Investors might have the option to invest in a multi-strategy fund that allocated assets across the different silos within the firm. One major advantage of multi-strategy funds over FOFs was fees: multi-strategy funds typically did not charge an additional fee layer over and above the hedge fund fee (as FOFs did). Further, multi-strategy funds only charged performance fees when the total investment was in the money; whereas, in the case of FOFs and direct single strategy investments, an investor could be subject to performance fees even if the net, aggregate performance wasn’t positive. A second potential advantage of multi-strategy funds was in portfolio construction. Not only was the allocation among strategies performed by professionals, those professionals likely had a high level of insight and visibility into the opportunities available to the individual silo managers. Multi-strategy funds generally offered as good or better liquidity than individual-strategy funds, and of course there was no trouble gaining â€Å"access† to the underlying managers. Multi-strategy funds appeared to offer strong diversification, although in the famous case of the hedge fund Amaranth, investors thought they were investing in a diversified portfolio of strategies. However, extreme losses in one of the portfolio’s silos led to the loss of approximately 75% of total portfolio value. Consequently many investors felt they were not truly diversified if they had a large allocation to a multi-strategy fund, but this could be potentially mitigated through the right amount of transparency into the positions and  risks of the portfolio, or, of course, through diversification among several different multi-strategy funds, thereby minimizing single firm risk. silos= opslagplaatsen 3 212-038 AQR’s DELTA Strategy One potential concern with multi-strategy funds from the investor’s point of view was the question of portfolio manager quality. Although it was possible that a single firm could gather under one roof the very best managers in a variety of specialties, some investors found this implausible. Hedge fund replication Starting in 2006, a number of investment management firms also introduced â€Å"hedge fund replication† products. These strategies, implemented using liquid instruments, purported to give investors a ‘top-down’ exposure to the broad risk exposures of the hedge fund industry. These products could be viewed as an effort to provide ‘hedge fund beta,’ or the systematic part of hedge fund performance. The rationale for these products originated from studies of hedge fund returns that highlighted the idea that the line between ‘alpha’ and ‘beta,’ was potentially fluid. The alternative systematic exposures of hedge funds could be viewed as a kind of â€Å"exotic beta.† If hedge fund returns could be approximated with dynamically traded portfolios of liquid assets, then investors attracted to hedge fund returns, but potentially looking for a liquid or low-fee alternative to actual hedge funds could invest in a ‘hedge fun d replication’ product that attempted to mimic hedge fund returns using liquid assets. These top-down approaches aimed to use statistical methods to create a portfolio of liquid assets that had similar performance to hedge funds as a class. One top-down approach was to use linear regressions, or optimizations, to build a portfolio that had high correlations to historical hedge fund returns. An example of this  approach consisted of three steps. First one would obtain a long-run time series of returns on a diversified portfolio of hedge funds (e.g., the HFRI monthly hedge fund indices were commonly used). Then one would obtain returns on a large number of liquid investments-these could be indexes of stocks (e.g., S&P 500, MSCI EAFE, MSCI Emerging, Russell 2000, etc.), bonds (e.g., US 10-year government bonds), currencies (e.g., EUR-USD Spot Exchange Rate), etc. () Finally, one would use a standard statistical optimizer, or linear regression, to find the portfolio of liquid investments (either long or short and at weights implied by the statistical analysis) that most closely replicated the statistical characteristics of the hedge fund portfolio. Exhibit 3 presents the monthly returns from a set of indices that were commonly used for hedge fund replication purposes. 1 Specifically, the goal was to create a portfolio that historically moved as close to one for one with the hedge fund portfolio, so that it had high correlation with the hedge fund portfolio, and yet also matched other â€Å"statistical moments,† such as volatility, skewness, and kurtosis. Historically, and ideally on a forward-looking basis as well, this portfolio would fulfill a role in the diversified portfolio similar to the role that hedge funds would play. Exhibit 4 plots the recent return performance of a few commonly used hedge fund indices (e.g., DJCS_Hedge, HFRI_FW, and HFRX_Global), which represent composite indices of individual hedge funds and were designed to track the overall return performance of the industry; as well as a fund-ofhedge funds (FOF) index (HFRI_FOF) designed to track the overall return performance of funds of hedge funds. Exhibit 5 presents the return performance of four popular hedge fund replication index products, produced by Merrill Lynch, G oldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Credit Suisse. Exhibit 6 presents the return performance of the overall hedge fund indices alongside the performance of these hedge fund replication products. 1 This is an excerpt of the data. The full data series is in the Spreadsheet Supplement to the case. 4 AQR’s DELTA Strategy 212-038 AQR’s approach For years, the principals at AQR had been working on understanding the underlying nature of hedge fund returns and exploring the possibility of being able to capture them in a transparent, liquid and cost effective way. Thus, they were initially intrigued by the introduction of these hedge fund replication products, but very soon came to the conclusion that an entirely different approach to delivering exposure to the systematic risk factors of the hedge fund industry was needed. Whereas AQR’s competitors focused on the ‘top-down’ products described above, AQR focused on creating a ‘bottom-up’ approach that sought to deliver significant risk-adjusted returns instead of simply replicating an index by: capturing classical, liquid hedge fund strategies that were uncorrelated with traditional markets, implementing them at low cost, and then bundling these strategies into a wellconstructed single portfolio focusing on portfolio construction, risk management and trading. Origins of AQR’s approach The idea of direct, simplified implementation of core hedge fund strategies was hinted at by the pioneering work into merger arbitrage of Mark Mitchell and Todd Pulvino. Mitchell and Pulvino were both former academics (at Harvard Business School and the Kellogg School of Management, respectively) who subsequently teamed up with AQR in 2001. A simple merger arbitrage strategy, for example, worked as follows: after the announcement by Firm A of a desire to acquire Firm B, the merger arbitrageur made a purchase of the target Firm B shares while shorting the acquirer Firm A’s shares (if the acquisition was to be made in cash, the arbitrageur merely purchased Firm B shares without shorting Firm A). Typically upon the announcement of the merger, the price of the target shares would not rise all the way to the price that would be appropriate if the merger were sure to be completed. When Mitchell and Pulvino studied the merger arbitrage industry, they found that merger arbitrage strategies did deliver substantial risk-adjusted returns. Specifically, the expected returns of putting merger arbitrage  investments into place was high, and while the risk was higher than one might naturally have expected — because mergers tended to break up exactly at times of market stress, and therefore the merger arbitrage strategy had more beta, or market exposure, than might be presumed — nevertheless they found that even accounting for this risk, the performance of a naà ¯ve merger arbitrage strategy that invested in every deal was substantial. Mitchell and Pulvino also looked at the performance of actual merger arbitrage funds. A merger arbitrage fund would be expected to add alpha by correctly identifying which mergers were more or less likely to achieve completion than the market anticipated. So, for example, if the market pricing of a deal was such that the expected return would be zero if the merger was 90% likely to be completed, the merger arbitrageur’s job was to try to figure out whether in fact the merger was substantially more than 90% likely to go through, substantially less than 90%, or about 90%, and then invest only in those deals that were substantially more than 90% likely to go through. What Mitchell and Pulvino found was that merger arbitrage funds made money, but that they did not show an ability to forecast which mergers would close over and above the market’s ability. That is, the outperformance that merger arbitrageurs were generating was no greater than the outperformance that would be generated by a simple strategy that bought every target and shorted every bidder, particularly net of fees. 5 212-038 AQR’s DELTA Strategy This opened the door to a potential strategy for the replication of merger arbitrage: simply participate in every merger arbitrage deal that met a set of basic screens (e.g., size and liquidity). The benefit to investors would be a potentially more diversified portfolio of merger deals than would be obtained from a fund manager who only selected a subset of the deals, and also potentially far lower fees, because there was no need to pay an analyst  to determine which mergers were more or less likely to succeed. With this as a template, one could easily imagine a whole roster of potential hedge fund strategies that could be captured in a systematic way (e.g., long value stocks and short growth stocks, convertible arbitrage, carry trades, trend following trades and trades exploiting other wellknown empirical asset pricing anomalies). Since the early work into merger arbitrage, AQR had spent years researching these other classical hedge fund strategies that could be captured from the bottomup. Bottom-Up versus Top-Down AQR preferred their bottom-up approach for a variety of reasons. First, they felt that many hedge fund strategies earned returns for bearing a liquidity risk premium, which you could not earn by trading solely in liquid instruments as in the hedge fund replication methods. For example, in order to capture the returns from a convertible bond that traded at a discount to fair value because of a liquidity risk premium, you needed to own the convertible bond, not simply liquid assets that were correlated with the convertible bond. Second, since top-down methods aimed to maximize correlations with recent past hedge fund performance, these approaches were necessarily backwardlooking and based on what hedge funds were doing in the past. By contrast, if you ran the actual strategies, one could respond to market opportunities immediately. Finally and perhaps most importantly, AQR felt that the hedge fund indices upon which most top-down replication strategies were based had a variety of biases (e.g., survivorship bias), had too much exposure to traditional markets (i.e., equity and credit beta) and also tended to reflect the weights of the most popular strategies. Since these popular strategies were crowded with many trades, the expected returns on these strategies going forward were potentially lower. In short, while they shared the noble goals of top-down replication products (i.e., attempting to provide liquid, transparent exposure to hedge fund strategies at a lower fee), AQR felt that the approach had fundamental flaws or, as Cliff Asness put it in a speech in October 2007 on hedge fund replication, â€Å"Not Everything That Can Be Done Should Be Done.† AQR’s DELTA Strategy In late 2007, AQR decided to focus their years of research on capturing the classical hedge fund strategies in a systematic way from the bottom up by â€Å"creating our own product that would seek to deliver these strategies in a risk-balanced and efficiently implemented way.† AQR viewed their â€Å"DELTA† product as superior to the newly-introduced replication products that were being marketed as offering ‘hedge fund beta.’ In fact, AQR staff bristled at comparisons between the existing hedge fund replication products and their DELTA product. To ensure that AQR was taking a broad approach and to avoid being insular, they formed an external advisory committee made up of some very seasoned hedge fund investors to help guide the development of the product. The DELTA name was an acronym that reflected the product’s characteristics: ‘Dynamic, Economically Intuitive, Liquid, Transparent and Alternative.’ The portfolio was designed to be uncor related with the overall stock market, and would be diversified across nine broad strategy classes: a Fixed Income Relative Value strategy, a Managed Futures strategy, a Global Macro strategy, insular = bekrompen 6 AQR’s DELTA Strategy 212-038 an Emerging Markets strategy, a Long/Short equity strategy, a Dedicated Short Bias strategy, an Equity Market Neutral strategy, a Convertible Arbitrage strategy, and an Event Driven strategy. Performance AQR decided to go ahead with the creation of the DELTA strategy in the late summer of 2008. By October 1, 2008, the portfolio was fully invested and had begun to compile a track record. At the time, the staff at AQR had worried that this might be â€Å"the worst possible time to be launching a product designed to capture classical hedge fund strategies.† Nonetheless, the DELTA  portfolio performed well in the fourth quarter of 2008 immediately after its launch, an impressive feat given the turbulence in the market. Exhibit 7 charts the monthly performance of the DELTA strategy since inception. Exhibit 8 shows the raw monthly returns of the DELTA strategy, compared to the raw monthly returns of stock market indices (S&P and NASDAQ) and broad hedge fund indices (e.g., DJCS_Hedge and HFRI_FW, which were designed to track the overall performance of the hedge fund industry). Exhibit 8 also presents the â€Å"beta† of the DELTA strategy with respect to these various market and hedge fund indices, while Exhibit 9 graphs the cumulative return performance of the DELTA strategy relative to these indices. Marketing DELTA Although DELTA was off to a great start, Kabiller felt like it was underperforming its potential. By the summer of 2011, despite its excellent performance, growth in DELTA’s AUM had been modest. After giving it a lot of thought, Kabiller identified three primary challenges AQR faced in convincing investors to allocate capital to DELTA. First, many of his institutional clients had grown very comfortable selecting a set of hedge funds and paying them both management and performance fees. Exhibit 10 presents the recent annual returns of some of the largest U.S. hedge funds, many of whom had delivered stellar returns over time. Kabiller was convinced that one of DELTA’s major assets was its ability to deliver hedge fund returns with a significantly lower fee structure. But many of his institutional clients had difficulty assessing just how large an advantage this provided DELTA. For instance, if a client selected the two percent management fee with no performance fee struct ure, how much higher could they expect their after-fee returns to be? Given that performance fees were typically only paid on returns in excess of a cash hurdle, was a twenty percent performance fee really that costly to fund investors? Related considerations applied to investors that invested primarily through Funds of Hedge Funds. These investment vehicles typically added a layer of fees on top of the after-fee performance of their hedge fund investments – typically a one percent management fee and a ten percent performance fee. Due to DELTA’s multi-strategy investment approach, its after-fee performance should perhaps be benchmarked against those of fund-of-funds alternatives. Conveying to such investors the fee advantage of DELTA in simple terms – for instance, how much better their competitors’ pre-fee returns needed to be than those of DELTA to offset the fee differential – would go a long way in convincing them that DELTA was the superior approach. A second challenge in marketing DELTA was the emergence of the so-called hedge fund replication strategies. These strategies were almost the polar opposite of the fund-of-funds – they had modest fees and, because they replicated hedge fund returns using highly liquid indices, they faced little in the way of liquidity risk. Institutional investors interested in low-fee exposure to hedge fund returns found these products attractive, and Kabiller found it challenging to convey the advantages of the DELTA approach. His inclination was to focus on two key limitations of hedge fund replication. First, he felt they relied heavily on the historical relationship between hedge fund returns and major stock and bond market indices. To the extent that the relationship was not stable, 7 212-038 AQR’s DELTA Strategy or to the extent that a large fraction of hedge fund movements could not be captured by an appropriate combination of these indices, the replication approach would be limited in its ability to truly deliver in real time the actual returns being earned by the average hedge fund investor. Second, even if the strategy could replicate a large fraction of the monthly fluctuations in performance of the average hedge fund, Kabiller felt it was likely that a â€Å"top-down† approach would be limited in replicating the actual edge, or â€Å"alpha,† of the average hedge fund. Even if much of the risks to which hedge funds were exposed could be found in broad stock and bond market indices, it was unlikely that any of the informational or liquidity edges they possessed would appear in the returns of these indices. A final challenge Kabiller faced in the marketing of DELTA was its track record. Although it had outpaced the broad HFRI index since its inception in the fall of 2008, th e track record was still a fairly limited one. Moreover, since the central appeal of the product was its ability to match average hedge fund returns  with modest fees, the outperformance ironically posed something of a challenge for DELTA. Kabiller felt it would be critical to understand its source before determining whether it was an aberration or whether they possessed a sustainable edge relative to the index of hedge funds. As Kabiller looked out beyond his infinity pool and into the calm waters of the Long Island Sound, he worried that without a proper grasp of these issues, many rough sales meetings lay ahead for him and his DELTA team. 8 AQR’s DELTA Strategy 212-038 Exhibit 1 Cumulative Return Performance of Hedge Fund Indices versus Stock Market Indices, since 1996. Cumulative Return Performance of Hedge Fund Indices Versus Stock Market Indices 500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 199601 199609 199705 199801 199809 199905 200001 200009 200105 200201 200209 200305 200401 200409 200505 200601 200609 200705 200801 200809 200905 201001 201009 201105 NASDAQ S&P_Index DJCS_Hedge HFRI_FW Source: Bloomberg. 9 212-038 AQR’s DELTA Strategy Exhibit 2 Total Number of Hedge Funds and Total AUM (Assets Under Management) for the Hedge Fund Industry, since 1997. Growth in Hedge Fund Industry (1997-2010) 12,000 $2,500.00 10,000 Number of Hedge Funds 8,000 $1,500.00 6,000 $1,000.00 4,000 $500.00 Hedge Fund AUM (in Billions $) $2,000.00 Number of Hedge Funds Hedge Fund AUM 2,000 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 $- Source: Created by casewriters using data from Hedge Fund Research, www.hedgefundresearch.com, accessed August 2011. 10 212-038 -11- Exhibit 3 Excerpt of Monthly Returns on Indices Commonly Used for Hedge Fund Replication (1996-2011). The full data series is contained in the Spreadsheet Supplement to the case MSCI EM 7.6% -0.6% 1.1% 5.2% 0.1% 0.9% -6.2% 2.6% 1.4% -1.4% 1.7% 1.0% †¦ -2.1% -1.4% 4.3% 0.8% -1.6% -1.9% -0.9% -7.3% -7.4% 9.1% -3.8% 0.0% 7.4% 3.9% 7.0% 6.2% -2.5% 0.5% 15.0% -0.5% 0.5% 10.9% -0.2% 1.0% 4.5% -8.7% -4.3% -8.8% -11.4% -5.4% -7.0% -1.3% -1.2% -3.5% -2.0% -2.5% -3.7% -1.1% -1.7% -2.0% 0.4% 0.1% 0.2% 0.4% -0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% -2.8% 2.0% 2.4% 2.6% 0.0% 3.0% -0.1% 0.5% 1.6% 2.4% -0.3% 5.4% 2.4% 3.4% 0.2% -0.1% -0.4% 0.0% 0.0% 1.6% 2.7% -0.7% 3.3% 5.7% 2.8% -2.0% 1.3% 2.0% 0.8% 4.0% -0.7% †¦ 4.0% 2.4% †¦ 7.6% -2.0% †¦ 0.8% 0.0% †¦ 2.8% -2.1% †¦ 4.6% -1.2% 3.7% -1.7% 5.6% 2.8% 0.9% 1.2% 2.2% 2.9% 0.9% 4.1% 0.4% 0.0% †¦ -0.7% -0.2% 1.1% 1.7% -0.9% -0.8% 0.6% -1.2% 1.4% 0.0% 1.0% 0.3% 0.0% 1.0% -4.9% 0.9% -4.2% -8.8% 5.7% 0.4% -4.4% 2.1% 0.8% 0.4% 0.4% 1.5% 0.0% -0.5% -0.3% -1.0% -1.4% 3.5% -1.2% 5.3% 3.9% 1.5% 2.6% 0.0% 0.2% -1.7% -0.6% 4.5% -1.4% -1.0% 2.8% 3.0% 1.8% 0.9% 1.0% -0.5% -0.2% -3.6% -1.1% -3.7% -0.3% 3.7% -0.2% 3.4% 0.9% 0.4% 5.1% MSCI EAFE RUSSELL 2000 S&P 500 US TREAS 2YR US TREAS 10YR CURRENCY HFRI HFRI FOF HFRI FW 1/31/1996 1.1% 2.7% 2.9% 2/29/1996 3/29/1996 2.8% 1.9% -0.6% 1.0% 1.2% 1.5% 4/30/1996 5/31/1996 5.3% 3.7% 3.1% 1.5% 4.0% 3.1% 6/28/1996 7/31/1996 8/30/1996 -0.7% -2.9% 2.6% 0.4% -1.9% 1.5% 0.2% -2.1% 2.3% 9/30/1996 10/31/1996 2.2% 1.6% 1.2% 1.6% 2.1% 1.0% 11/29/1996 12/31/1996 †¦ 1.7% 0.8% 2.3% 0.7% †¦ 2.1% 1.3% †¦ 1/31/2011 2/28/2011 0.4% 1.3% 0.1% 0.8% 0.4% 1.2% 3/31/2011 4/29/2011 0.5% 1.3% -0.1% 1.2% 0.1% 1.5% 5/31/2011 6/30/2011 7/29/2011 -1.3% -1.3% -0.3% -1.1% -1.3% 0.4% -1.2% -1.2% 0.2% 8/31/2011 9/30/2011 -4.9% -6.0% -2.6% -2.8% -3.2% -3.9% 10/31/2011 11/30/2011 12/30/2011 4.9% -2.0% -0.9% 1.1% -1.0% -0.4% 2.7% -1.3% -0.4% 1/31/2012 3.8% 1.9% 2.6% Source: Thomson Reuters Datastream. 212-038 AQR’s DELTA Strategy Exhibit 4 Cumulative Return Performance of Overall Hedge Fund Indices, since June 2007. Recent Performance of Hedge Fund Indices 120 110 100 DJCS_Hedge 90 80 70 60 200706 200708 200710 200712 200802 200804 200806 200808 200810 200812 200902 200904 200906 200908 200910 200912 201002 201004 201006 201008 201010 201012 201102 201104 201106 HFRI_FW HFRX_Global HFRI_FOF Source: Bloomberg. 12 AQR’s DELTA Strategy 212-038 Exhibit 5 Cumulative Return Performance of Hedge Fund Replication Indices, since June 2007. Recent Performance of Hedge Fund Replication Products 130 120 110 100 90 80 70 60 200706 200708 200710 200712 200802 200804 200806 200808 200810 200812 200902 200904 200906 200908 200910 200912 201002 201004 201006 201008 201010 201012 201102 201104 201106 ML GS JPM CS Source: Bloomberg. 13 212-038 AQR’s DELTA Strategy Exhibit 6 Comparison of Cumulative Return Performance of Overall Hedge Fund Indices versus Hedge Fund Replication Indices, since June 2007. Comparison of Recent Performance of Hedge Fund Indices Versus Hedge Fund Replication Products 130 120 110 100 90 80 70 60 200706 200708 200710 200712 200802 200804 200806 200808 200810 200812 200902 200904 200906 200908 200910 200912 201002 201004 201006 201008 201010 201012 201102 201104 201106 DJCS_Hedge HFRI_FW HFRX_Global HFRI_FOF ML GS JPM CS Source: Bloomberg. 14 AQR’s DELTA Strategy 212-038 Exhibit 7 Monthly Return Performance of AQR DELTA strategy, Since Inception. AQR DELTA Return Performance 5.00% 4.00% 3.00% 2.00% 1.00% 0.00% -1.00% -2.00% -3.00% -4.00% Source: Company documents. 15 212-038 AQR’s DELTA Strategy Exhibit 8 Monthly Return Performance (and Beta) of AQR DELTA strategy compared to Market Indices (S&P, NASDAQ) and Hedge Fund Indices (DJCS_Hedge, HFRI_FW), since October 2008. Date 200810 200811 200812 200901 200902 200903 200904 200905 200906 200907 200908 200909 200910 200911 200912 201001 201002 201003 201004 201005 201006 201007 201008 201009 201010 201011 201012 201101 201102 201103 201104 201105 Average DELTA 1.22% 1.72% 4.05% 2.79% -0.10% 2.32% 3.09% -0.35% 1.78% 1.93% 4.48% 2.70% -0.31% 0.96% 0.55% -0.66% -0.27% 2.23% 2.18% -3.37% 1.39% 1.62% 2.02% 3.33% 2.47% 1.03% 1.93% -0.41% -0.45% 0.92% 2.31% -0.84% 1.32% NASDAQ -17.73% -10.77% 2.70% -6.38% -6.68% 10.94% 12.35% 3.32% 3.42% 7.82% 1.54% 5.64% -3.64% 4.86% 5.81% -5.37% 4.23% 7.14% 2.64% -8.29% -6.55% 6.90% -6.24% 12.04% 5.86% -0.37% 6.19% 1.78% 3.04% -0.04% 3.32% -1.33% 1.19% 0.09 0.25 0.28 S&P_Index -16.94% -7.48% 0.78% -8.57% -10.99% 8.54% 9.39% 5.31% 0.02% 7.41% 3.36% 3.57% -1.98% 5.74% 1.78% -3.70% 2.85% 5.88% 1.48% -8.20% -5.39% 6.88% -4.74% 8.76% 3.69% -0.23% 6.53% 2.26% 3.20% -0.10% 2.85% -1.35% 0.64% 0.09 0.28 0.32 DJCS_Hedge -6.30% -4.15% -0.03% 1.09% -0.88% 0.65% 1.68% 4.06% 0.43% 2.54% 1.53% 3.04% 0.13% 2.11% 0.88% 0.17% 0.68% 2.22% 1.24% -2.76% -0.84% 1.59% 0.23% 3.43% 1.92% -0.18% 2.90% 0.69% 1.38% 0.12% 1.80% -0.96% 0.64% 0.25 HFRI_FW -6.84% -2.67% 0.15% -0.09% -1.21% 1.66% 3.60% 5.15% 0.25% 2.50% 1.30% 2.79% -0.20% 1.52% 1.28% -0.76% 0.66% 2.49% 1.19% -2.89% -0.95% 1.61% -0.13% 3.48% 2.14% 0.19% 2.95% 0.41% 1.23% 0.06% 1.45% -1.18% 0.66% 0.25 DELTA’s Beta with: DJCS_Hedge’s Beta with: HFRI_FW’s Beta with: Source: Company documents. 16 AQR’s DELTA Strategy 212-038 Exhibit 9 Cumulative Return Performance of AQR DELTA Strategy versus Market Indices (S&P and NASDAQ) and Hedge Fund Indices (DJCS_Hedge and HFRI_FW), since October 2008 Cumulative Return Performance of DELTA versus Market and Hedge Fund Indices 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 DELTA NASDAQ S&P_Index DJCS_Hedge HFRI_FW Source: Bloomberg and company documents. 17 212-038 -18- Exhibit 10 Annual Returns of Largest Hedge Funds (%) Fund Name Winton Futures USD Cls B Millennium International Ltd Transtrend DTP – Enhanced Risk (USD) The Genesis Emerging Mkts Invt Com A Aspect Diversified Programme Aurora Offshore Fund Ltd. Permal Macro Holdings Ltd USD A Canyon Value Realization Cayman Ltd A Permal Fixed Income Holdings NV USD A Absolute Alpha Fund PCC Diversified Caxton Global Investments Ltd GAM U.S. Institutional Trading K4D-10V Portfolio K4D-15V Portfolio Orbis Optimal (US$) Fund GAM Trading II USD Open Double Black Diamond Ltd (Carlson) GoldenTree High Yield Master Fund Ltd Bay Resource Partners Offshore Fund Ltd GAM U.S. Institutional Diversity Firm Name Winton Capital Management Millennium Intl. Management Transtrend BV Genesis Investment Management Aspect Capital Aurora Investment Management Permal Asset Management Canyon Capital Advisors Permal Asset Management Financial Risk Management Caxton Associates GAM Sterling Management Graham Capital Management Graham Capital Management Orbis Investment Management GAM Sterling Management Carlson Capital Goldentree Asset Management GMT Capital Corp GAM Sterling Management Size ($Bil) 9.89 8.84 8.38 6.70 5.71 5.56 5.35 5.21 4.51 4.47 4.40 3.57 3.54 3.54 3.43 3.09 2.98 2.65 2.45 2.43 2001 7.11 15.26 26.36 4.62 15.79 9.82 14.66 12.69 11.50 9.33 31.41 16.34 6.45 39.31 29.01 14.78 11.94 18.30 29.32 9.56 2002 18.34 9.61 26.26 -1.77 19.19 1.31 8.03 5.21 10.47 6.36 26.44 10.69 18.76 43.71 12.15 10.55 2.12 6.24 0.03 4.95 2003 27.75 10.89 8.48 61.98 20.59 13.58 12.56 21.87 17.59 8.07 8.09 14.74 8.46 21.60 10.84 14.49 7.62 31.42 23.24 14.60 2004 22.63 14.68 12.82 31.53 -7.72 8.15 4.86 13.56 9.37 4.06 9.97 3.55 5.56 -0.43 2.25 3.84 4.70 9.89 27.97 6.14 2005 9.73 11.31 5.99 37.86 12.01 9.47 10.65 8.35 7.69 7.00 8.03 4.98 -7.52 -16.97 8.60 4.80 5.08 13.35 30.95 10.48 2006 17.83 16.43 12.04 30.22 12.84 10.95 9.48 14.08 10.48 8.94 13.17 8.68 5.02 6.64 4.95 7.44 21.12 13.21 21.65 16.74 2007 17.97 10.99 22.38 31.68 8.18 13.14 8.90 7.52 8.42 16.33 1.06 9.48 11.62 16.57 6.98 7.93 15.96 4.60 19.84 7.76 2008 20.99 -3.04 29.38 -49.30 25.42 -21.69 -5.16 -28.36 -18.40 -23.02 12.96 7.57 21.82 35.67 -2.49 5.78 -12.40 -38.60 -20.88 -13.96 2009 -4.63 16.28 -11.27 90.44 -11.24 21.26 9.83 55.20 27.32 10.51 5.83 8.32 1.41 3.11 9.92 6.55 28.34 69.94 56.60 6.78 2010 14.46 13.22 14.89 25.06 15.36 7.31 6.38 13.46 10.40 5.36 11.42 7.80 2.46 4.58 -3.93 5.97 9.30 23.61 15.90 -1.14 2011 6.29 8.39 -8.65 -15.29 4.51 -6.01 -3.27 -4.66 -5.28 -2.06 -2.40 -2.32 -4.11 -2.67 -4.19 -2.79 Source: Morningstar Hedge Fund Database, accessed January 2012.