Her body, her baby, her choice Essay Example for Free

Her body, her baby, her choice Essay Abortion, it’s not a choice that any woman would ever want to have to make, but it’s a decision that she should have the right to make. If it comes down to the possibility of her and her baby losing their lives, she should be able to stop this possibly fatal pregnancy. The body is hers, the baby is hers, and the choice should be hers. If you disagree, make the choice for your own body. Abortion should be legal. What people may not realize is that, legal or not, abortion still happens all around the world. Of the approximately 42 million abortions that do occur worldwide, almost half are performed by unskilled individuals, in environments that do not meet minimum medical standards or both. † (http://www. guttmacher. org/pubs/gpr/12/4/gpr120402. html). Unsafe and illegal abortion is responsible for one in eight maternal deaths and according to an estimate done by the World Health Organization in 2006 ‘back alley’ abortions cause about 68,000 deaths each year where abortion isn’t legal. There is no question that making abortion illegal in places such as the United States, will only make these numbers increase greatly. It’s no secret that raising a child requires mass amounts of money that many women who get pregnant don’t have, especially if they have no partner to help them out. Poor and low income women account for more than half of abortions in the United States. Without the option to get an abortion, there would be many more children suffering because they have to live their life in poverty. Almost half of all children with a single mother live in poverty, these children experience poverty at a rate that is more than four times higher than kids in married-couple families. Although, it is believed that â€Å"abortion legalization may have led to an improvement in the average living conditions of children, probably by reducing the numbers of youngsters who would have lived in single-parent families, lived in poverty, received welfare and died as infants. † (https://www. guttmacher. org/pubs/journals/3402502. html) Many people who are against abortion don’t take into consideration that not all women are able to safely give birth to a child and the risk of death associated with childbirth is about 10 times as high as the risk of death associated with  abortion. For example, teen girls aged around 15-19 years old have bodies that are not yet ready for childbirth. These girls are five times more likely to die, with around 70,000 of them dying annually. Their babies that do survive still have a 60% higher chance of dying than normal babies. With so much uncertainty, why shouldn’t they have the option to prevent themselves and their own parents the pain of losing a child. Many people believe that women are using abortion as a form of birth control. That they believe that they no longer need to be cautious because they can go pop over to the doctors to get an abortion whenever. However, this isn’t the case and, more often than not, women who get abortions were on some sort of birth control. Though, with any birth control there is almost always a chance of it not working properly and you becoming pregnant. Only less than one in ten women getting abortions weren’t on any sort of birth control. Making abortion illegal forces women who may have taken many precautions to not become pregnant to have a child that they don’t want and makes it so that an unwanted child is born into this world. This would not be fair to the woman or the child. Something that many people who oppose to abortion believe is that abortion, spontaneous or induced, raises the risk of breast cancer or any other type of cancer. There have been many, many studies done studies by various people such as the National Registry of Induced Abortions, the Danish Cancer Registry, Harvard researchers, and The California Teachers Study. The large size of most of the studies and the manner in which they were done provide good evidence that induced labor does not affect a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer. In 2003, the U. S. National Cancer Institute had a workshop with more than 100 of the world’s leading experts who study pregnancy and breast cancer risk. They all found that neither induced or spontaneous abortion are linked to an increase in breast cancer risk; the level of scientific evidence for these findings was considered the highest level, ‘well established’. Abortion should be legal because it saves many women’s lives from unsafe abortion, it can save families from lifelong poverty and it may save the lives of women who are unable to safely give birth to children. In a country that is based on freedom; freedom of speech, freedom of religion, individual freedom, why should this situation be any different? A law based off of a religious belief isn’t something that this country stands for, a law that prevents women from making decisions about her own body should not be a law in this country.

Study On The Objectives Of The Bse Sensex Finance Essay

Study On The Objectives Of The Bse Sensex Finance Essay BSE SENSEX is the short form of the BSE Sensitive Index. The index is widely used to measure the performance of the Indian Stock Market. It is a Market Capitalization Weighted index of 30 stocks representing a sample of large, liquid, well established and financially sound companies. The index is widely reported in both, the domestic and international, print and electronic media and is widely used to measure the performance of the Indian stock markets. The BSE Sensex is the benchmark index of the Indian capital market and one which has the longest social memory. In fact the Sensex is considered to be the pulse of the Indian stock markets. It is the oldest index in India and has acquired a unique place in the collective consciousness of investors. Further, as the oldest index of the Indian Stock Market, it provides time series data over a fairly long period of time. One of the most important attributes of Sensex is to maintain continuity with the past i.e. to update the base year av erage. The base year value adjustment ensures that the rights issue and new capital of the index scrips do not destroy the value of the index. The day-to-day maintenance of the Sensex is done by the Bombay Stock Exchange and special care is taken to include only those scrips, which pass through several filters. The Stock Exchange, Mumbai popularly known as BSE was established in 1875 as The Native Share and Stock Brokers Association. It is the oldest one in Asia, even older than the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which was established in 1878. It is a voluntary non-profit making Association of Persons (AOP) and is the first Stock Exchange in the country to have obtained permanent recognition in 1956 from the Government of India under the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956. The Exchange, while providing an efficient and transparent market for trading in securities, debt and derivatives upholds the interests of the investors and ensures redressal of their grievances whether against the companies or its own member brokers. A Governing Board having 20 directors is the apex body, which decides the policies and regulates the affairs of the Exchange. The Governing Board consists of 9 elected directors, who are from the broking community (one-third of them retire every year by rotation), three SEBI nominees (Securities Exchange Board of India), six public representatives an Executive Director, Chief Executive Officer and a Chief Operating Officer. The Executive Director and the Chief Executive Officer are responsible for the day-to-day administration of the Exchange and he is assisted by the Chief Operating Officer and other Heads of Departments. OBJECTIVES The BSE Sensex is the benchmark Index of the Indian Stock Market with wide acceptance among individual investors, institutional investors and fund managers. The objectives of the index are: Æ’ËÅ" TO MEASURE MARKET MOVEMENTS Given its long history and wide acceptance, no other index matches the BSE Sensex in reflecting market movements and sentiments. Sensex is widely used to describe the mood in the Indian Stock Market. Æ’ËÅ" BENCHMARK FOR FUNDS PERFORMANCE The inclusion of the Blue chip companies and the wide and balanced industry representation in the Sensex makes it the ideal benchmark for fund managers to compare the performance of their funds. Æ’ËÅ" FOR INDEX BASED DERIVATIVE PRODUCTS Since Sensex comprises of leading companies in all the significant sectors in the economy, we believe that it will be the most liquid contract in the Indian market and will garner a pre dominant market share LISTING OF SECURITIES Listing means admission of securities to dealings on a recognized stock exchange. The securities may be of any public limited company, Central or State Government, quasi-governmental and other financial institutions/corporations, municipalities etc. The objectives of listing are mainly to: Æ’ËÅ" Provide liquidity to securities Æ’ËÅ" Mobilize savings for economic development Æ’ËÅ" Protect interest of investors by ensuring full disclosures. The Exchange has a separate Listing Department to grant approval for listing of securities of companies in accordance with the provisions of the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956, Securities Contracts (Regulation) Rules, 1957, Companies Act, 1956, Guidelines issued by SEBI and Rules, Bye-laws and Regulations of the Exchange. SELECTION CRITERIA The criteria for selection and review of scrips for the BSE Sensex can be explained in the following manner: A. QUANTITATIVE CRITERIA 1. MARKET CAPITALIZATION: The Scrip should figure in the top 100 companies listed by market capitalization. Also market capitalization of each of the scrip should be at least. 0.5 % of the total market capitalization of the Index i.e. the minimum weight should be 0.5%. Since the BSE Sensex is a market capitalization weighted index, this is one of the primary criteria for scrip selection. (Market Capitalization would be averaged for last 6 months). 2. LIQUIDITY: a. Trading Frequency: The scrip should have been traded on each and every trading day for the last six months. Exceptions can be made for extreme reasons like scrip suspension etc. b. Number of Trades: The scrip should be among the top 150 companies listed by average number of trades per day for the last one year. c. Value of Shares Traded: The scrip should be among the top 150 companies listed by average value of shares traded per day for the last one year. d. Trading Activity: The average number of shares traded per day as a percentage of the total number of outstanding shares of the company should be greater than 0.05 % for the last year. 3. CONTINUITY: Whenever the composition of the Index is changed, the continuity of historical series of index values is re-established by correlating the value of the revised index to the old index (index before revision). The back calculation over the last one-year period is carried out and correlation of the revised index to the old index should not be less than 0.98. This ensures that the historical continuity of the index is maintained. 4. INDUSTRY REPRESENTATION: Scrip selection would take into account a balanced representation of the listed companies in the universe of BSE. The index companies should be leaders in their industry group. 5. LISTED HISTORY: The scrip should have a listing history of at least 6 months on BSE. However, the Committee may relax the criteria under exceptional circumstances. B. QUALITATIVE CRITERIA 1. SCRIP GROUP: The Scrip should preferably be from à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¾Aà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¸ group. 2. TRACK RECORD: The company should preferably have continuous dividend paying record or / and promoted by management having proven record. S P CNX NIFTY The NSE -50 Index was launched by the National Stock Exchange of India Limited, taking as base the closing prices of November 3, 1995 when one year of its Capital Market segment was completed. It was subsequently renamed S P CNX Nifty- with S P indicating endorsement of the Index by Standard and Poorà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¸s and CNX standing for CRISIL NSE Index. The S P CNX NIFTY, also popularly known as the Nifty 50, is one of the most scientific indices in India that reflects the price movement of 50 blue- chips, large cap, liquid and highly traded stocks of 23 sectors. The Nifty is managed by India Index Services Products Ltd. (IISL). The total value of all Nifty stocks is approximately 70% of the traded value of all stocks on the NSE. Nifty stocks represent about 59% of the total market capitalization. OBJECTIVES The basic idea of this index is to ascertain the movements of the stock market as a whole by tapping the news which can affect the stock. The index also averages out the good stock specific news for a few companies and bad stock specific news for others and left with the news that is common to all stocks. The news that is common to all stocks is news about India, which is the sole purpose of NSE Nifty. According to NSE, the Index was introduced with the objectives of: 1. Reflecting market movement more accurately, 2. Providing Fund Managers with a tool for measuring portfolio returns vis-a-vis market returns, and 3. Providing a basis for introducing Index based derivatives. This paper discusses Efficient Market Hypothesis (thereby referred to as EMH), seasonalities and its implications in both advanced and emerging securities markets. EMH suggests that investors cannot expect to out perform the market consistently on a risk adjusted basis (Mayo, 2003). According to Fama (1965) who developed the Efficient Market Hypothesis, an efficient market is a market where there are a large number of rational profit-maximizers actively competing, with each trying to predict future market values of individual securities, and where important current information is almost freely available to all participants. In an efficient market, competition among the many intelligent participants leads to a situation where at any point in time, actual prices of individual securities already reflect the effects of information both on events that have already occurred and on events which, as of now, the market expects to take place in the future. In other words, in an efficient marke t at any point in time, the actual price of a security will be a good estimate of its intrinsic value. On the other hand, in an inefficient market, EMH would not hold. This suggests that existence of loop holes which could be exploited to make abnormal returns by predicting market price patterns, using past price information and insider information. These market inefficiencies, also called market anomalies have received as much research work as EMH. 2. THREE FORMS OF MARKET EFFICIENT HYPOTHESIS There are three forms of market efficiency in an informationally efficient market, where prices adjust quickly and accurately to new information (Emery et al, 2007). These forms show the degree of efficiency of security markets and attempt to answer the question of how efficient a market is. (Mayo, 2003 and Keane, 1983) 2.1 Weak Form Efficiency The weak form of EMH asserts that the current price fully reflects information contained in the past history of prices only. Stock market price information is available via most means of mass communication. Thus, investors should be unable to make superior profit from use of public information i.e. daily stock market prices or company results available to all. Again, many investment bankers and financial analysts devise investment strategies using technical analysis of past data to outperform the market and their competitors, in satisfying their clients demand for superior returns. Transaction costs of trading, investment advice, analysis and commissions when considered, affects the investors return, especially for investors who continue to use traditional full service brokers (Mayo,2003) 2.2 Semi Strong Form Efficiency The semi strong form of EMH, according to Brealey et al (2006), prices reflect not just past prices but all other published information, such as you might get from reading the financial press. Similarly, Fama (1969) defined it as publicly available information with examples of announcements of annual earnings and stock splits. Semi-strong form of EMH asserts that current prices fully reflects public knowledge about the underlying companies and that efforts to acquire and analyze this knowledge cannot be expected to produce superior investment results (Lorie Hamilton 1973). 2.3 Strong Form Efficiency The strong form of EMH suggests that share prices fully reflect not only published information but all relevant information including data not yet publicly available. It also asserts that not even those with privileged information (insiders) can often make use of it to secure superior investment results (Lorie Hamilton 1973). These three forms of EMH are not independent of one another. For the market to be efficient in the semi-strong form, it must also be efficient in the weak form, because if price movements follow a predictable path which the perceptive observer can exploit profitably, the implication is that the price has reacted slowly or capriciously to published information. Likewise, for the market to be efficient in the strong form it must also be efficient at the other two levels, otherwise, the price would not capture all relevant information (Keane, 1983). He went on to state that for an inefficiency (seasonality) to be operationally significant it must be exploitable. Keane (1983) analyses four criteria an exploitable inefficiency should satisfy, these are: (a) it should be authentic supportable by properly conducted statistical research. (b) It should be identifiable-not just strategies or people that beat the market but concrete and verifiable evidence. (c) It should be material- inefficie ncies are not exploitable unless they are sufficient to compensate for the costs and risks of pursuing them. (d) It should be persistent-the value of inefficiency is not just a record of its existence in the past but that it will continue to exist in future. These criteria are very important in understanding the different types of market seasonality or anomaly, their existence, prevalence and their implications for the EMH. 3. SEASONALITIES AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE EMH Seasonalities, as the name suggests are time regularities, patterns or predictable trends. In the financial securities market, seasonalities would suggest predictable time patterns in the behaviour of the stock market-volume of stock trades, stock returns etc. If it does exist, then investors can exploit the market for superior returns in all financial securities markets. Seasonalities as defined by Alagidede (2008) are evidences of market efficiency anomalies. These are also known as seasonal anomalies (calendar effects) which may be loosely referred to as the tendency for financial returns to display systematic patterns at certain times of the day, week, month or year. Calendar effects include: January effect, the month of the year effect, monthly effect, holiday effect, Monday effect / day of the week effect, weekend effect, turn of the year effect etc. (Guo and Wang, 2007). Discussing a few of them will be worthwhile. 3.1 The January Effect The January effect is where returns are much higher during the month of January than any other month, i.e. where investors can earn a disproportionately high amount of the total annual return available from both fixed income assets and equity in January Clare et al (1995). Most research conducted in developed economies confirm the presence of the January effect, although, in more recent times they seem to be disappearing. Keim (1983) and Reinganum (1983) show that the January effect and the size effect are highly interrelated. Blume and Stambaugh (1983) discovered, after controlling for upward biases in small stock returns, the size effect was only significant in January. An extensive amount of studies has gone into the month of the year effect. Mills and Coutts (1995) concluded that stock returns are much higher in the month of January in the UK using FTSE indices between January 1986 and October 1992(FTSE 100,Mid 250 and 350 indices). Gultekin and Gultekin (1983) using 17 countries also found evidence that the January return is much higher than other months returns, Alagidede (2008) tested for month of the year effect in emerging African markets and concluded that the January effect is positive and significant for Nigeria, Egypt and Zimbabwe. However Guo and Wangs (2007) study on the emerging Chinese stock market shows that there is no significant January effect in Chinese stock market. Many researchers have sought the cause of the January effect and arrived at a number of causes which include: tax-loss selling hypothesis, provision of new information at the end of a fiscal year, firm size had the significant higher risk in the beginning of the year than the rest of the year and the systematic tendencies for closing prices to be recorded at the bid in the last traded in December and at the ask in early January (Guo and Wangs, 2007) 3.2 The Holiday Effect The definition of a holiday is relative, subjective and would vary for different countries and their capital markets e.g. Christian, Muslim, public holidays etc. One definition of a holiday looks at days, other than Saturday or Sunday, upon which the market is closed (Alagidede, 2008). Ariel (1990) used US data reports to show that the trading day prior to holidays on average displays high positive returns, this result was supported by Kim and Park (1994) for US, Japan and UK .However, Cadsby and Ratner (1992) using UK data concluded that the holiday effect was insignificant This conclusion was challenged by Mills and Coutts (1995) in their study of calendar effects using London stock FTSE indices. Coutts et al (2000) showed that the holiday effect is present in their study of the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE), although, no similar study has been undertaken on the ASE which would have been used as a basis of comparison. Their results were consistent with international evidences. 3.3 The Weekend Effect One of the most prevalent anomalies appears to be a weekend effect where stocks display significantly lower returns over the period between Fridays close and Mondays close (Arsad and Coutts, 1995). Jaffe and Westerfield (1985) examined the daily stock market returns in 4 international stock markets including, the London stock Exchanges FT30 over the period 1950 1982 and found a significant weekend effect. Consistent with Jaffe and Westerfield (1985) findings, Condoyanni et al (1987) also found the existence of the weekend effect in the UK when examining the FT30 over the period 1979 1994. Arsad and Coutts (1996, 1997) also found the weekend effect in the FT30 from the period 1935 1994, although according to their research the effect was found not to be persistent. Board and Sutcliffe (1988) examined the weekend effect in the Financial Times all share index over the period 1962 1986 and found clear evidence of a weekend effect over the sample period, with the significance of the e ffect diminishing over time. This is consistent with later research done by Dubois and Louvet (1996) on the same index for the period 1969 1992, in which negative returns was found on Monday, which are compensated by abnormal positive returns on Wednesday. Agrawal and Tandon (1994) examined the weekend effect in 18 countries including the UK and found a negative Monday return when the market rises in the previous week. Furthermore, they found the effect disappearing in 1980. Mills and Coutts (1995) found evidence of the existence of the weekend effect in the UK when the FTSE 100, Mid 250, 350 and certain of the accompanying industry baskets was examined for the period from 1986 to 1992. Ajayi et al (2004) investigated day of the week stock return anomaly, using major market stock indices in eleven eastern European emerging markets for the period 1994 2002. The results show negative and positive Monday returns in six and five emerging markets respectively, of which only two of the six show negative Monday returns and one of the five show positive Monday returns and were statistically significant. Choudhry (2000) investigated the day of the week effect in seven emerging Asian stock markets from 1990 1995 and found significant weekend effect in some of the markets considered. 3.4 The Day of the Week Effect: The day of the week effect refers to existence of a pattern on the part of stock returns, whereby these returns are linked to the particular day of the week (Poshakwale 1996). The last trading days of the week, particularly Friday, are characterised by substantially positive returns while Monday, the first trading day of the week, differs from other days, even producing negative returns (Cross 1973, Lakonishok Levi (1982), Rogalski (1984), Keim Stambaugh( 1984) and Harris (1986). In other words, this effect relates to the difference in returns across different days of the week with the variance in stock returns found to be largest on Mondays and lowest on Fridays (Raj Kumari 2006). It should be noted that the day of the week effect in emerging capital markets has not been extensively researched and the presence of such an effect would mean that equity returns are not independent of the day of the week effect against random walk theory (Poshakwale 1996). On the other hand, the inte rnational evidence of the report has been somewhat mixed. Dubois and Louvert (1996) find returns to be lower for the beginning of the week (but not necessarily Monday) for European countries, Hong Kong and Canada. However, it was observed that the anomaly disappeared in the USA for the most recent periods. Agrawal and Tandon (1994), find negative Monday returns in nine countries and negative Tuesday returns in eight countries (out of a total of nineteen countries). Several theories have been put forward regarding specific time periods anomalies in the capital market. The day of the week effect has been explained by examining various kinds of measurement errors such as: settlement period hypothesis; which attributes the day of the week effect to the settlement dates with prices higher on the pay-in days as compared to the pay-out days. Calendar time(trading time) hypothesis; implies that since Monday returns are spread across three days (Saturday, Sunday Monday), the returns should be three times as high as other days. The negative Monday returns go against this reasoning, which lead to the proposed theory that returns should be proportional to trading time as opposed to calendar time (Raj Kumari 2006). Information flow hypothesis postulates that the difference in information flow over the weekend compared to other days of the week causes the Monday effect (Dyl Maberly 1988). Often companies hold back negative information till the weekend, g iving the investors two non-trading days to absorb the information before reacting with trading activity. Consequently, all sell orders get pushed to Monday, thereby giving negative returns (Raj Kumari 2006). Retail investor trading hypothesis, suggests that negative Monday returns could be the result of individual investor trading activity (Brooks Kim 1997). It was found that trading activity is significantly lower on Monday for large size trades, while small size trades have a higher percentage of sell orders on Monday as compared to other days of the week. 3.5 Trading Month Effect The trading month effect also called the turn-of -the-month effect which was first documented by Ariel(1987) using US data shows that returns are only positive around the beginning and during the first half of trading months, whereas during the second half they are on average zero. This study was replicated by Jaffe and Westerfield (1989), for the UK, Japan, Canada and Australia, in their study. However, only Australia shows a significant monthly effect. A conflicting evidence for the UK in a report from Cadsby and Ratner (1992) shows a significant trading month effect in the FT 500. Ariel (1988) offered three explanations for the trading month effect which include: new information concerning corporate cash flows, changes in risk free rate and changes in the preferences of market participants leading to variation in demand for securities which cannot be offset by supply. Mills and Coutts (1996) investigated the this effect using a large sample of daily returns from the Financial Time s Industrial Ordinary Share Index and found that a trading month effect is present but exists for a much shorter period than has been documented by previous studies for both the US and the UK. The information release hypothesis of French(1980) was accepted as an explanation of the trading month effect, only if the unexpected release of good and bad news has a tendency to fall in the final and first days of trading months, securities would be riskier during these periods , thus justifying the higher first half returns. Context of India: Published studies that have examined calendar effects in the Indian stock market appear to be limited. Kaur (2004) reports that few studies have examined the day-of-the-week effect in the Indian stock market, and further notes the absence of studies that examine monthly seasonality in the Indian stock market. Kaur utilized two Indian stock indexes, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 30 index and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) SP CNX Nifty stock index, to examine the day-of-the-week effect and the monthly effect. Kaur did not find a January effect in the Indian stock market, but did find that March and September generated substantially lower returns, whereas February and December generated substantial positive returns. Sarma (2004) adds that very few studies have examined calendar effects during the post reform era in the Indian stock market. Sarma investigated the BSE 30, the BSE 100, and the BSE 200 stock indexes to detect the day-of-the-week effect. Utilizing Kruskal-Wallis test statistics, Sarma concluded that the Indian stock market exhibited some seasonality in daily returns over the period January 1, 1996 to August 10, 2002. Bodla and Jindal (2006) examined several seasonal anomalies in the Indian stock market utilizing the SP CNX Nifty Index for the period January 1998 to August 2005. For the monthly effect, they did find some significant differences for their sub-period, January 2002 to August 2005. However, they were unable to find any significant differences among individual months. In an earlier study, Ignatius (1998) examined seasonality in a BSE index and in the Standard and Poors 500 stock index for the period 1979-1990. Ignatius found that December generated the highest mean returns , and that April and June generated high returns in the Indian stock index. Some studies examine seasonality in the Indian stock market as part of a broader analysis of seasonality in several major emerging stock markets. For example, Fountas and Segredakis (2002) investigated monthly seasonal anomalies in eighteen major emerging equity markets, including the Indian stock market. They examined the monthly effect for the period January 1987 to December 1995. For the Indian stock market, they found August returns were significantly greater than April, May, October and November returns. However, they did not find evidence consistent with hypothesized tax-loss selling in the Indian stock market, as the tax-year in India commences in April. Yakob, Beal and Delpachitra (2005) examined seasonal effects in ten Asian Pacific stock markets, including the Indian stock market, for the period January 2000 to March 2005. They state that this is a period of stability and is therefore ideal for examining seasonality as it was not influenced by the Asian financial crisis of the late nineties. Yakob, et al., concluded that the Indian stock market exhibited a month-of-the-year effect in that statistically significant negative returns were found in March and April whereas statistically significant positive returns were found in May, November and December. Of these five statistically significant monthly returns, November generated the highest positive returns whereas April generated the lowest negative returns. Evidence of monthly seasonality in the Indian stock market is somewhat mixed. This may be, in part, a consequence of the fact that the Indian economy is in transition and is therefore constantly evolving, supporting the notion that further research into these calendar effects in the Indian stock market is warranted.

Drugs, Cheating, and the Purity of Americas Pastime Essay -- Baseball

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Most children who have grown up in an American household have at one point in their lives looked up to sports figures as heroes. Whether it was your grandfather telling his stories of watching Babe Ruth become a legend, your father’s stories of Mickey Mantle and the legendary Yankee teams of the 1950’s and 1960’s, or your own memory of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa chasing the home run record, the feeling of wholesomeness that baseball provides has always found its way into many people’s hearts. Steroids have tarnished these sacred memories, cast doubts in the minds of many on the legitimacy of records and statistics and finally affected the way younger players play the game. Baseball, America’s pastime, is embedded in the fabric of society. The players and teams have come and gone, but the thing that remains constant is baseball’s ability to unite people as well as families. My own personal experience of this came right after September 11th, 2001. Following the tragedy that was 9/11, the country needed something to help everyone return to normalcy. In our moment of weakness and uncertainty, baseball helped calm my nerves. Fifty three thousand three hundred and twelve brothers stood up in unison and took back their lives. The electricity of that game, the sense of regularity in my life, and the knowledge that millions of people were finding comfort together with me during such a hard time, helped me feel a sense of closure that the worst was behind us. It is the mystique and aura of the players, the exciting tales behind them, as well as the history of the game that keeps us interested as fans. These are the reasons why people, children especially, see these players as invincible, and perfect in every way, shape, and form. What would happen if after a century of inspiring stories, and incredible tales of heroism, the inconceivable notion that these players were not perfect, took prominence? Or that many of these superstars cheated their way to the top?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Recently the topic of steroid use in baseball has been everywhere in the news. It has finally come to the attention of Major League Baseball, and now the general public, that a vast percentage of players have been using illegal performance-enhancing drugs. This not only casts a cloud of suspicion over which players are using steroids, and makes one wonder which players are genuine, but it tar... ...ue Baseball is showing that they are finally becoming adamant about ridding themselves and their reputation of this problem, is something that should give us hope for now, as well as for the future. Even more so than simply testing the players though, I think a key issue that has been overlooked and that may be a huge contributor to the steroid problem without many people being aware of it, is the incentives given in a player’s contract. Getting rid of the six figure bonuses commonly given for a certain amount of home runs, hits, strikeouts, innings pitched, etc, will help reduce the apparent need to use steroids as a source of instant reward and income. While doing this there will still most certainly be players drawn to steroids as a means to get ahead of the competition for personal glory or other reasons, the fact is eliminating bonuses has the potential to significantly reduce the amount of users in the league. It is then, and only then that we can be prepared to fully eliminate the steroid problem as we know it today, remove the cloud of doubt over everyone’s heads, and return the game of baseball to the past glorification that it once knew, as the true American pastime.

Marcus Aurelius Essay -- essays research papers

Marcus Aurelius was born on April 20, 121 AD into a family of royalty. His uncle and adoptive father, Antoninus Pius, was the emperor of Rome. Aurelius, too, was trained from birth to be a great ruler like his father. At age eleven, he dedicated himself to religion, although he considered philosophy to be the "true, inward" religion, one which did not require ceremonies necessary in others. He was appointed by Emperor Hadrian to priesthood in 129. The Emperor also supervised his education, which was with the best professors of literature and philosophy of the time. From his early twenties, he deserted his other studies for philosophy. In 161, Marcus Aurelius ascended the throne and shared his imperial power with his adopted brother Lucius Aurelius Verus. Useless and lazy, Verus was regarded as Marcus’s sidekick, but he died in 169. After Verus's death, he ruled alone. In the movie Gladiator, Marcus Aurelius is a sick ruler who is fighting against the Parathions to take over the land and make his empire greater than it was. The movie never showed Marcus Aurelius in his youth when he was the ruler, but only showed when he was a dying man. Of course, the movie was not based off Marcus Aurelius, but it could have gone more in depth of what his beliefs were on life and his citizens. The movie kind of represents Rome as a great city, but in reality, while Aurelius was the Emperor, Rome was not all that great. Aurelius went through a tough t...

Shakespeares As You Like It - The Transformation of Rosalind :: Shakespeare As You Like It Essays

As You Like It: The Transformation of Rosalind Many characters undergo a change in William Shakespeare’s play, As You Like It. Duke Senior goes from being a member of a court to being a member of a forest. Orlando changes from a bitter younger brother to a love-sick young man. But the most obvious transformation undergone, is done by Rosalind. Her change from woman to man, not only alters her mood, candor, and gender, but allows her to be the master of ceremonies. Celia and Rosalind are fairly happy in the court of Celia’s father, Duke Frederick. However, much to her surprise, the Duke banishes Rosalind from his court. Celia, not allowing her beloved cousin to "go it alone", decides to accompany her to where ever she may roam. They decide to search out Rosalind’s father, Duke Senior, in the forest of Arden. Before they depart, Rosalind decides that for both her and Celia’s safety, she will dress herself as a man, saying, "Were it not better, Because that I am more than common tall, That I did suit me all points like a man? A gallant curtal ax upon my thigh, A boar spear in my hand, and- in my hear Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will- We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside, As many other mannish cowards have That do outface it with their semblances. (1:3 ll. 112-120) At first glance, this transformation is a mere change of clothes and the addition of weapons, but it goes much deeper. To Rosalind, the taking on of a man’s appearance requires certain things. She believes that while dressed as a man, she cannot bring shame to the image of a man. A good example of this is in Act 2, Scene 4, where she says, "I could find in my heart to disgrace my man’s/ apparel and to cry like a woman; but I must comfort/ the weaker

Gallipoli

Gallipoli Essay Gallipoli is a movie directed by Peter Weir that was released in 1981. It stars Mel Gibson as Frank Dunne and Mark Lee as Archie Hamilton. The film is about several young men from rural Western Australia (WA) who enlist for the Australian Army in May 1915, around the time that Australia first entered the great war. The film has three main settings and three main acts. Act one is set in WA, act two is set in Cairo, Egypt during the Australian Army training camps. And the third and final act is set in Gallipoli.During the course of the movie Archie and Frank slowly lose their innocence about the purpose of war. Through out the film Peter Weir uses film techniques such as symbolic, written, audio and technical codes (SWAT codes) to influence the viewer to have a sympathetic view towards Frank and Archie. In Peter Weir’s tragedy Gallipoli the viewer is made to feel sympathetic towards Frank through the use of SWAT codes. The viewer is first introduced to Frank Dunn e in the second scene of the film in an unknown rural region of WA.When the viewer is first introduced to Frank he is with his mates and they are discussing whether to join the infantry or not. All of Frank’s mates are on board but Frank is not convinced. â€Å"If you want to go and get yourselves blown up then by all means join up. † This example symbolises how Frank is more worldly and has an idea about what really happens in war. This quote also makes the viewer immediately feel sympathetic towards Frank as that viewer gets the feeling that he’s going to leave his mates and have to be alone.This then changes when that when we realise that Frank is going to the Kimberly gift to run this is when the viewer learns that Frank is also a runner however he decides to put a bet on himself to win but the viewer can see through the use of technical codes that although he is confident enough to bet on himself he is still worried about losing the money. The use of techni cal codes makes this clear as the viewer is shown a close up on Franks face which has an anxious expression.This example from the film makes the viewer immediately feel sympathetic towards Frank as the viewer can see how worried Frank is about losing possibly his last bit of money through the use of SWAT codes and in this case the use of technical codes. There are many other scenes where Frank is seen to be running in most cases when he is running it usually turns out to be successful. This is also backed up through the use of sound codes. â€Å"Oxygene† by Jean-Michel Jarre is heard whenever Frank is running and in every case he usually turns out to be something happy associated the music.However this is used as a trap to the viewer when the song is once again played when Frank is running from officer Barton to General Gardiner. Immediately the viewer begins to think as though something good will happen as whenever â€Å"Oxygene† is played the viewer associates it wit h something positive. However it becomes obvious that something bad has happened when we see Archie get killed by Turkish soldiers. This example of the use of an audio code clearly shows how SWAT codes are used through out the film to influence the viewer to have a sympathetic view towards Frank.Through out Peter Weir’s film Gallipoli Frank becomes a character that the viewer becomes quite attached to as his character is displayed through out the film. He is seen as a wise, cunning athlete who the viewer becomes very sympathetic towards. This becomes clear from the examples which have been given in the text above. In Peter Weir’s film Gallipoli The viewer is made to feel sympathetic towards Archie. The viewer is made to feel this way through the use of SWAT codes. The viewer is first introduced to Archie in the very first scene of the Peter Weir’s film Gallipoli.The viewer is given a written code saying â€Å"Western Australia, May, 1915† This written cod e immediately makes the viewer feel sympathetic towards Archie as it is discovered that he is alive during the time that Australia first entered the great war the viewer also immediately makes the assumption that Archie is going to join up as written codes have suggested in the credits. Evidence of this written code that suggests that Archie may join up is in the opening credits. In gothic, blood red text the title says: â€Å"Gallipoli†.This example again makes the viewer feel sympathetic towards Archie as one may get the feeling that something bad may happen to him. Archie’s appearance is another characteristic that makes the viewer feel sympathetic towards him. Archie’s appearance is of a young faced tanned, blonde haired ‘typical Australian’. His appearance also symbolises Australia as a nation in being that it is a very young country. This symbolic code that Peter Weir has used helps the viewer feel sympathetic towards Archie as the viewer may feel that he is just too young o go to war. In the examples given above it becomes clear how the viewer is positioned to have a sympathetic view towards Archie through the use of SWAT codes. Overall I enjoyed Peter Weir’s film ‘Gallipoli’ I found that it had a sad yet comedic view to it and showed the Australian culture during the early years of its federation. The film also showed how nothing good comes out of war and that many young people with infinite potential such as Frank and Archie were killed because of some body else’s war.The film also made the viewer feel in a sympathetic way towards the main characters Frank and Archie. The viewer is positioned to feel this way through the use of film techniques known as SWAT codes. Examples of when these codes are used are shown through out the film have been shown in text above via examples of speech quotes from the film, camera angle and technique analysis, audio analysis, and written text quotes. Through a ll these examples of where SWAT codes have been used it becomes very clear how the viewer begins to have a sympathetic view towards Frank and Archie.

The Art Of Beautiful Women

Proposal:I will attempt to display the comparison of the cultures that produce the Barbie doll and the cultures that produce the Venus de Willendorf. While talking about the two cultures, I will describe some interesting but common themes the Paleolithic cultures and the modern culture encounter: what our modern culture has embraced and those things that it has deserted of which the Paleolithic culture in high regards. Meanwhile through my discussions I will show how much of our world views have changed from an era of the Venus de Willendorf to the modern world view of what the ideal woman should look like and how the view of beauty should not be as two-dimensional as the modern culture makes it out to be.Outline:Introductiona.) â€Å"Only the eye beholder can see the art of beautiful women†, this observation can be proven by looking at different cultures throughout the history of our times. The art of beautiful women is much more that what she looks like, it is also what a wo man’s body can withstand as well as what her body can produce. Women’s bodies are only the expression of the women we allow to live inside them. Let that woman be free. Let her shine. And know that the house in which she lives will always be as beautiful as she believes it to be. Previous cultures show’s us what our modern culture tends to ignore. Body:b.) Common ideas between the Paleothic cultures’s view on beauty verses our modern society’s view.I.) A common idea on the views of beauty between the Paleothic culture and our modern society’s view is that both cultures tend to admire a woman’s beauty: each in their own way. c.) A bit of differences between the views of beauty of the Paleothic culture and the modern world.II.) The main difference between the culture of our past and today’s  society is that of size and shape of a woman. In the Paleothic culture, the ideal shape of a women is believed to have been rather a large size woman, she would be considered volumpsous. Although today‘s society dictates that women of this era should be thin, big breasted and well preserved. Conclusion:The main objective that was intended for discussion of this paper was to discuss the different women idols that are famous in today’s era as compared to the Paleothic era. The significance of women has changed with the passage of time along with the roles and responsibilities that were fulfilled by them previously. There is a major difference between the idealizations of art of beautiful of women in the Paleothic culture and the art of beautiful women that is referred to in today’s society.Some of the roles that women share from both era’s were that women were depicted as some sort of sex symbol, and important enough for being child bearing. The role that the Barbie play in today’s society will be researched in order to explore the societal, political implication of idols to identify th e similarities and differences between the earliest known civilization and the culture of today ‘s era.