In a large midwestern university (the class of entering freshmen is 6000 or more students), an SRS of 100 entering freshmen in 1999 found that 20 finished in the bottom third of their high school class.  Admission standards at the university were tightened in 2000.  In 2001, an SRS of 100 entering freshmen found that 10 finished in the bottom third of their high school class.  Let p1 and p2 be the proportion of all entering freshmen in 1999 and 2001, respectively, who graduated in the bottom third of their high school class.

Is there evidence that the proportion of freshmen who graduated in the bottom third of their high school class in 2001 has been reduced, as a result of the tougher admission standards adopted in 2000, compared to the proportion in 1999?  To determine this, you test the hypotheses

H0: p1 = p2, Ha: p1 > p2.

The z-test statistic is approximately 1.98, find the P-value, using a Standard Normal Table or your calculator.

Does Attractiveness Lead to Higher Marginal Revenue Product?

Economist David Hamermesh of the University of Texas, Austin, and Jeff Biddle of Michigan State University discovered that “plain-looking” people earn 5 to 10 percent less than people of “average” looks, who in turn earn 5 percent less than those who are considered “good looking.” Surprisingly, their research showed that the “looks effect” on wages was greater for men than for women. This wage differential related to appearance is not, contrary to popular belief, evident only in modeling, acting, or working directly with the public. Looks seem to account for higher earnings in jobs such as bricklaying, factory work, and telemarketing.

According to Hamermesh and Biddle, part of the wage differential may be created by the fact that attractiveness leads to higher marginal revenue product. More attractive persons may have higher

self-esteem, which in turn causes them to be more productive.

QUESTION: What are some other possible reasons that more attractive people tend to earn more?

Q2: You have just graduated from MBA program with finance major. Immediately after graduation you have been hired as a financial analyst in a highly prestigious listed company name Cornejo. Your first assignment is to estimate the cost of equity capital and stock price of the company. Your assistant gathered the following information for you:

• The dividend per share (DPS) record of the company over the last 5 years is as follows:

• Risk free rate is 3.5 percent
• Market risk premium is 5 percent
• Cornejo Co has an estimated beta of 1.10
• The company’s dividend growth rate is expected to remain constant for the foreseeable future.

Required:

1. Estimate the company’s cost of equity capital using CAPM.  
2. Draw and briefly define the security market line (SML).
3. Extrapolate a past growth rate. (
4. Estimate the current price of the company’s shares.
5. State clearly any limitations and assumptions that you made in your calculations.

A university administrator expects that 25% of students in a core course will receive an A. He looks at the grades assigned to 60 students. a. What are the expected value and the standard error for the proportion of students that receive an A? b. Use an appropriate normal transformation to calculate the probability that the percentage of students that receive an A is 20% or less. c. Use an appropriate normal transformation to calculate the probability that the proportion of students who receive an A is between 0.20 and 0.35. d. Use an appropriate normal transformation to calculate the probability that the proportion of students who receive an A is not between 0.20 and 0.30

Q1.

A) List and differentiate the roles between the key players on a construction project.

B) In civil engineering, contractors may be broadly classified as either general or specialists, distinguish the two classes of contractors.

C) In a scenario of a project for construction of high rise lecture rooms building at Mulungushi University, a client, a Consultant and a Contractor are all Civil Engineers. Who is responsible for issuing instructions to the Contractor and explain why? (assignment question)

D) Who is responsible for paying temporal works on a construction site? Give a reason why?

Suppose that Musashi, an economist from an AM talk radio program, and Rina, an economist from a university in Massachusetts, are arguing over health insurance. The following dialogue shows an excerpt from their debate:

Rina: A popular topic for debate among politicians as well as economists is the idea of providing government assistance for health benefits.

Musashi: I think it is oppressive for the government to tax people who take care of themselves in order to pay for health insurance for those who are obese.

Rina: I disagree. I think government funding of health insurance is useful to ensure basic fairness.

The disagreement between these economists is most likely due to:

A: Differences in scientific judgments

B: Differences in Values

C: Differences between perception VS. reality

Despite their differences, with which proposition are two economists chosen at random most likely to agree?

A.Lawyers make up an excessive percentage of elected officials.

B. Minimum wage laws do more to harm low-skilled workers than help them.

C. Tariffs and import quotas generally reduce economic welfare.

New Macomb Wholesale Distributor made the following transactions in year 7.
Record all the transactions in general journal form.

feb 8th Bought inventory on account from Fountain Mfg. company for $18,600.00. terms 3/15, net 60.

feb 10th Paid $375 to Hare transport for shipping charges for inventory we are acquiring

feb 13th Sold merchandise on acct. to Alixx Co. for $92,500. All on acct. sales are with terms 1/10, net 30.
This merchandise cost us $55,500.

feb 16th Fountain Mfg. company issued us a 350.00 credit memo related to our purchase made on feb. 8th.

feb 17th Sold merchandise on acct. to Tyrone Sports Co. for $10,300. This merchandise cost us 9,455.

feb 19th Fully paid what is owed to Fountain Mfg.

feb 20th Alixx Co. returned 1/4 of what they purchased on the 13th.

feb 21st Alixx Co. fully paid what they owe us.

Mar 1st Tyrone Sports fully paid what they owe us.

Please add explanations to journal entires.

Show totals for debits and credits at the end.

Show All work please

Do you have food cravings? According to the New York Times, one of the largest studies of food cravings involved a survey of 1000 McMaster University students. The survey revealed that 97 % of the women in the study acknowledged specific food cravings while only 67 % of the men did. Assume that 600 of the respondents were women and 400 were men.

(a) Is there sufficient evidence to claim that the true proportion of women who acknowledge having food cravings exceeds the corresponding proportion of men? Test using α = .01.

(b) Why is it dangerous to conclude from the study that women have a higher incidence of food cravings than men?

Write 3 paragraphs for reflection and should be do the following:

1. In first paragraph, Summarize the article (attached below). (Don't plagiarism from article. Please use your own words to summarize)
2. In second paragraph, Connect the article with one of those
"Archaeological methods" or "Early farming and the rise of cities" or "Archaeological record – the material artifacts and environmental evidence". Be specific about the connections you make.
3. In third paragraph, Include your own reflection on what you’ve read/learned. What do you think about it?

Article Here: "First evidence of farming in Mideast 23,000 years ago"
Until now, researchers believed farming was "invented" some 12,000 years ago in the Cradle of Civilization -- Iraq, the Levant, parts of Turkey and Iran -- an area that was home to some of the earliest known human civilizations. A new discovery by an international collaboration of researchers from Tel Aviv University, Harvard University, Bar-Ilan University, and the University of Haifa offers the first evidence that trial plant cultivation began far earlier -- some 23,000 years ago. The study focuses on the discovery of the first weed species at the site of a sedentary human camp on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. It was published in PLOS ONE and led by Prof. Ehud Weiss of Bar-Ilan University in collaboration with Prof. Marcelo Sternberg of the Department of Molecular Biology and Ecology of Plants at TAU's Faculty of Life Sciences and Prof. Ofer Bar-Yosef of Harvard University, among other colleagues. "While full-scale agriculture did not develop until much later, our study shows that trial cultivation began far earlier than previously believed, and gives us reason to rethink our ancestors' capabilities," said Prof. Sternberg. "Those early ancestors were more clever and more skilled than we knew."

Evidence among the weeds

Although weeds are considered a threat or nuisance in farming, their presence at the site of the Ohalo II people's camp revealed the earliest signs of trial plant cultivation -- some 11 millennia earlier than conventional ideas about the onset of agriculture. The plant material was found at the site of the Ohalo II people, who were fisher hunter-gatherers and established a sedentary human camp. The site was unusually well preserved, having been charred, covered by lake sediment, and sealed in low-oxygen conditions -- ideal for the preservation of plant material. The researchers examined the weed species for morphological signs of domestic-type cereals and harvesting tools, although their very presence is evidence itself of early farming. "This uniquely preserved site is one of the best archaeological examples worldwide of the hunter-gatherers' way of life," said Prof. Sternberg. "It was possible to recover an extensive amount of information on the site and its inhabitants". "Because weeds thrive in cultivated fields and disturbed soils, a significant presence of weeds in archaeobotanical assemblages retrieved from Neolithic sites and settlements of later age is widely considered an indicator of systematic cultivation," according to the study.

Early gatherers

The site bears the remains of six shelters and a particularly rich assemblage of plants. Upon retrieving and examining approximately 150,000 plant specimens, the researchers determined that early humans there had gathered over 140 species of plants. These included 13 known weeds mixed with edible cereals, such as wild emmer, wild barley, and wild oats. The researchers found a grinding slab -- a stone tool with which cereal starch granules were extracted -- as well as a distribution of seeds around this tool, reflecting that the cereal grains were processed for consumption. The large number of cereals showing specific kinds of scars on their seeds indicate the likelihood of those cereals growing in fields, and the presence of sickle blades indicates that these humans deliberately planned the harvest of cereal. The new study offers evidence that early humans clearly functioned with a basic knowledge of agriculture and, perhaps more importantly, exhibited foresight and extensive agricultural planning far earlier than previously believed.