1. Lebanon is currently facing both a foreign debt crisis and a banking crisis. What is the difference between the two? Discuss their implications for Lebanon. How can Lebanon recover?

2. Reflect on levels of economic development and crises like those that currently face Lebanon. How does corruption and fiscal mismanagement leave a country vulnerable to economic disaster? What are the implications of this? How is the situation exacerbated by the novel coronavirus pandemic?

3. How does Lebanon’s persistent trade imbalance contribute to its foreign debt crisis? Would a floating exchange rate help to alleviate the situation? Explain the relationship between exchange rates and imports and exports.

Discuss the function/s and structures of the Digestive body systems. Include in your essay at least 5 different structures that contribute to the functions you choose. Discuss the anatomy of the chosen structures and explain *HOW they contribute to the overall function.

The following data give the number of hours 5 5 students spent studying and their corresponding grades on their midterm exams. Hours Studying   Midterm Grades
1   74
2   86
3   91
3   94
5   97

Step 1 of 5 : Calculate the sum of squared errors (SSE). Use the values b0=73.0000 b 0 = 73.0000 and b1=5.5000 b 1 = 5.5000 for the calculations. Round your answer to three decimal places.

Step 2 of 5:

Calculate the estimated variance of errors, s2ese2. Round your answer to three decimal places.

Step 3 of 5:

Calculate the estimated variance of slope, s2b1sb12. Round your answer to three decimal places.

Step 4 of 5:

Construct the 99% confidence interval for the slope. Round your answers to three decimal places.

Lower:

Upper:

Step 5 of 5:

Construct the 80% confidence interval for the slope. Round your answers to three decimal places.

Lower:

Upper:

LN Corporation, a U.S corporation, owns all the stock of Foreign Sub 1, a foreign corporation. Foreign Sub 1 in turn owns 20% of the voting stock of Foreign Sub 2, also a foreign corporation. LN Corporation also owns 10% of the nonvoting common stock of Foreign Sub 2 but owns no voting stock in Foreign Sub 2. During the current year, Foreign Sub 2 pays dividends on its nonvoting common stock, but pays no dividends on its voting stock. Is LN Corporation eligible for an Internal Revenue Code Section 902 indirect foreign tax credit for the current year with respect to the foreign income taxes paid by Foreign Sub 2? See Revenue Ruling 74-549, 1974-2 C.B. 207, 208 (holding that the Section 902 credit is not available to a U.S. parent corporation receiving a dividend owned only nonvoting stock of the second-tier corporation; IRS reasoned that the Section 902 credit is “contingent upon distribution [of a dividend] through the chain of corporations possessing voting stock ownership in the distributing corporation”).

The comparative balance sheets for 2021 and 2020 and the income statement for 2021 are given below for Arduous Company. Additional information from Arduous’s accounting records is provided also.

Additional information from the accounting records:

1. Investment revenue includes Arduous Company’s $10 million share of the net income of Demur Company, an equity method investee.
2. Treasury bills were sold during 2021 at a gain of $4 million. Arduous Company classifies its investments in Treasury bills as cash equivalents.
3. Equipment originally costing $74 million that was one-half depreciated was rendered unusable by a flood. Most major components of the equipment were unharmed and were sold for $15 million.
4. Temporary differences between pretax accounting income and taxable income caused the deferred tax liability to increase by $5 million.
5. The preferred stock of Tory Corporation was purchased for $27 million as a long-term investment.
6. Land costing $48 million was acquired by issuing $24 million cash and a 12%, four-year, $24 million note payable to the seller.
7. The right to use a building was acquired with a 15-year lease agreement; present value of lease payments, $84 million. Annual lease payments of $7 million are paid at the beginning of each year starting January 1, 2021.
8. $62 million of bonds were retired at maturity.
9. In February, Arduous issued dividend (4.8 million shares). The market price of the $5 par value common stock was $7.50 per share at that time.
10. In April, 1 million shares of common stock were repurchased as treasury stock at a cost of $11.00 million.

Required:
Prepare the statement of cash flows of Arduous Company for the year ended December 31, 2021. Present cash flows from operating activities by the direct method. (Do not round your intermediate calculations. Enter your answers in millions (i.e., 10,000,000 should be entered as 10.). Amounts to be deducted should be indicated with a minus sign.)

Between 2000 and 2012, Gap, Inc. (Gap) ceded its world leadership position in specialty fashion retailing to Inditex of Spain and H&M of Sweden. These two companies, each less than a quarter of Gap’s size in 2000, were now setting the pace in the global mass fashion market, and Gap appeared to be falling ever further behind. In the intervening twelve years, three CEOs had struggled to turn around the fading brand. While several temporary profit boosts appeared to herald a recovery, a sustained rally remained elusive. Mickey Drexler, Gap’s CEO since 1983, who had been responsible for Gap’s rise to global prominence, was fired in 2002 after two years of double digit, same-store sales declines and a 75% drop in the stock price. 1 His successor, Paul Pressler, appeared to have engineered a remarkable recovery, but was fired in 2007 after disappointing sales and another slump in profits. His replacement, Glenn Murphy, fresh from a successful turnaround at a Canadian drug-store chain, promised tighter price controls, lower administrative costs, and a leaner, more aggressive Gap. He cut costs and drove up earnings per share, but sales continued to decline. After four years of troubles, Murphy brought in former J. Crew President, Tracy Gardner, to consult with the Gap brand and he began a bold program to close one fifth of Gap’s North American store base. In 2012, sales had lifted 8%, same-store sales were strongly positive for all of Gap’s domestic sub-brands, and the company’s share price had lifted nearly 50% from the prior year. After 12 years of poor performance, had Glenn Murphy finally discovered the answers to Gap’s problems?  Mickey Drexler: 2000-2002 After Gap, Inc. “misjudged fashion trends in 2000,” its sales growth rate slowed to 18%, below the historical average, and operating profits fell 20% to $1.4 billion.3 CEO Mickey Drexler, was confident that this stumble was a short term problem, but 2001 results suggested otherwise. Sales lifted only 1%, operating profits plunged anther 70% to $426 million and the company made a net loss. 2002 saw sales rise 4% and operating profits recover to $1.0 billion, but comparable stores sales continued to fall. Gap’s stock price decreased from a high of $53.75 in February 2000 to $14 in May 2002.4 Several top designers and senior executives left the company “disillusioned with how bureaucratic the organization had become.” Analysts noted that, while Gap had made “button-down shirts, chinos and basic cotton T-shirts the boomer uniform,” it was struggling to resonate as well with some members of Generation Y (those born in the late 1970s to early 1990s) who were “looking for individuality, not conformity.”6Chairman Don Fisher had had enough. The night before the Gap board meeting on May 22, 2002, Steve Jobs, a board member, called Mickey Drexler to warn him that the board was planning to fire him the next morning. Drexler entered the board meeting aggressively and a board member later described it as “a very emotional scene.”Despite his shock and disappointment, Drexler quickly recovered. In 2003, he became the CEO of J. Crew, a quality basic clothing chain which was incurring heavy losses. Within two years, he had returned it to profitability and, within five, he had more than doubled sales. Paul Pressler: 2002-2007 Paul S. Pressler replaced Drexler as the CEO of Gap, Inc. Pressler had spent 15 years with The Walt Disney Company and ended his tenure there as the chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. The press noted the difference in the two men’s leadership styles: whereas Drexler “flew by the seat of his khakis,” relying on his honed intuition to direct apparel development, Pressler was researchoriented and left decisions about apparel to Gap, Inc.’s designers. 8 Pressler stated, “I had to demonstrate to everyone that the general manager is here to lead the people—not pick the buttons.”9 Pressler moved quickly to close 200 underperforming stores, slow the rate of new openings, and reduce excess inventory, 10 resulting in a “spectacular turnaround” in 2003. 11 Between 2002 and 2003, operating profits rose 87% to $1.8 billion, marginally beating the all-time record set in 1999. Gap Brand Pressler hired Canadian Pina Ferlisi as executive vice president of product design in March 2003 to define the division’s style aesthetic. Before joining Gap, Inc., Ferlisi worked at Perry Ellis, Tommy Hilfiger, and Theory; she also helped launch the successful Marc by Marc Jacobs line. Her Gap design team was located in New York City and included Vice President of Women’s Design Louise Trotter, who formerly worked at Calvin Klein, and Vice President of Accessories Design Emma Hill, who previously held a similar post at Marc Jacobs. Both Trotter and Hill hailed from the U.K. Scores of consumer and employee insights indicated that female Gap customers felt that the brand’s offerings were too androgynous and boxy. Hence, Ferlisi made the women’s lines more feminine and focused on fabric and fit. Banana Republic For years, Banana Republic had a reputation of being “a purveyor of chic basics—casual office wear in black or beige”27—i.e., an upscale Gap. However, under the direction of President Marka Hansen, the division focused on making its product assortment more fashionable and trendy, minimizing the overlap between Gap and Banana, and catering to 25- to 30-year-old professionals . Hansen explained, “What’s the hook or differentiation? . . . It’s an affordable, covetable luxury . . . . We’re bringing fashion to a wider audience. Old Navy Under President Jenny Ming, Old Navy continued its focus on families, rolling out underwear, maternity, and infant lines to raise margins.32 The division expanded to Canada in Pressler’s first year as CEO and it targeted Hispanics with its first Spanish television spot at the end of 2003. The company’s localization strategy was tested in select Old Navy stores in 2004, and the company planned to extend the program to all Old Navy outlets in 2005. Forth & Towne Gap, Inc. established five test stores for Forth & Towne in Chicago and New York by fall 2005. Under Gary Muto’s leadership, the firm positioned Forth & Towne to appeal to women aged 35– 50. Gap Online Toby Lenk, a 1987 Harvard MBA, headed the company’s online division, Gap, Inc. Direct. In 2004, Gap, Inc. was the largest U.S. online apparel retailer with sales of over $500 million. It was “redesign[ing] and rebuild[ing] all of [its] websites from the ground up” to enhance visitors’ online shopping and to improve online and in-store integration.47 Lenk noted that 35% of the company’s Web site visitors were pre-shoppers preparing for store visits, and 13% of those who entered a Gap, Inc. store had visited the store’s online site beforehand. The firm’s new e-commerce platform would allow the sites to take back orders and preorders. Lenk explained, “This means we will never have to walk a sale on a basic item, and at the same time it will allow us to run our basic inventory much tighter.”48 The company planned to have most of the Web site enhancements completed by the 2005 holiday season. Marketing Along with reworking Gap’s main brands, Pressler also overhauled Gap’s public image and publically positioned its divisions as lifestyle brands. The CEO remarked, “We need to bring more theatrics, storytelling and consistency [to retail]. If you can’t tell me what a Gap dinner party, Banana Republic car or Old Navy vacation looks like, then we haven’t built our stories.”49 Pressler had also been focused on differentiating the brands and “upgrading the marketing functions at all of Gap’s brands, including the hires of new head marketers at all three units.”50 Recent Gap-brand TV advertising featured actors and singers. The company paid 40-year-old actress Sarah Jessica Parker, former Sex and the City star, $38 million to appear in television and print ads for three seasons during 2004–2005. It replaced Parker with 17-year-old British soul singer Joss Stone as its Gap spokes-model in the summer of 2005.51 In an effort to tout its “vastly expanded variety of fits” in jeans, the company planned to use more nontraditional types of advertising—i.e., “guerrilla marketing and grassroots tactics,” according to Jeff Jones, executive vice president of marketing at Gap. After lackluster results in 2005 and six consecutive quarters of declining same-store sales, Pressler pointed to 2006 as a key year to prove Gap’s recovery and justify his rebranding efforts.60 Pressler noted, “We are acting with a tremendous sense of urgency to win back customers.”61 Pressler also increased the annual cash dividend 78% for 2006 and the board authorized a further $500 million for a share repurchase program, $250 of which would be repurchased in Q1 and Q2 of 2006. Fisher: Interim CEO, 2007 Although Fisher was interim CEO for less than a year, he made a number of moves that undid much of Pressler’s previous work. Less than a week after firing Pressler, he cut many of Pressler’s hires from Disney. Cynthia Harriss, the president of Gap U.S., was replaced by Marka Hansen, the previous president of Banana Republic and an employee since 1987. Fisher also closed all Forth & Towne stores by the end of June, taking a pretax charge of $40 million.67 Although Forth & Towne has been open since 2005, financials were never disclosed for the brand. Fisher also began to reduce Gap’s workforce to bring down expenses, cutting a “relatively small percentage” of the 150,000 workers. Glenn Murphy: 2007-2012 On July 26, 2007, Gap appointed Glen Murphy, as the new CEO. Since 2001, he had been the CEO of Shoppers Drug Mart, a Canadian drugstore chain. Murphy’s first major move as CEO was to cut expenses and control inventory discounting. Quarter three profit for 2007 lifted 26% due to lower marketing spending and better product margins. In 2008, Spain’s Inditex overtook Gap, Inc. as the world’s largest specialty apparel retailer, reaching $3.3 billion in sales for the first quarter of 2008 compared to Gap’s $3.25 billion.86 With over 200 designers and rapid supply chains that could produce and stock hot items within weeks. Problems returned in 2011. Sales remained steady at $14.5 billion, but operating profits fell 27% to $1.4 billion. Murphy hired former J. Crew President, Tracy Gardner, to consult with the Gap brand. Gap announced plans to shut more than one fifth of its North American stores over the next two years and aimed to shrink the U.S. store base to 700 by the end of 2013.91 Murphy noted that China was Gap’s biggest market for further growth. However, by the end of 2012, Murphy’s strategy appeared to be working. Sales lifted 8% to $15.6 billion, a six-year high, and operating profit recovered to $1.9 billion. Store closings lifted sales per store in the North American Gap to $3.7 million (from a low of $3.3 million in 2009) and comparable store sales were strongly positive for all of Gap’s North American divisions. Gap had also made significant steps toward streamlining its production and engaging more closely with trending fashions. By 2012, Gap had cut its lead time from more than nine months in the early 2000s to less than four months for key items.96 Across all lines, production time had been cut by nearly one third. 97 In January Gap acquired Intermix Inc. for $130 million, which promised expansion into the luxury market as well as greater access to of-the-moment fashion pieces. Although Intermix didn’t manufacture its own clothing, it has established relationships with a variety of high street designers. What else could Murphy do to restore Gap’s leading position in fashion retailing? Would Murphy’s international and online focus be enough to sustain this turnaround?

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What is the case about?

What are the important events that occurred in the case?

What can we learn from reading the case?

What advice do you have for the leaders in the case and/or company in the case?

Please solve in Java,

The traveling salesman, wishing to visit a set of cities in the shortest time possible. A tour is a path that starts in one city, visits all the other cities, and then returns to the starting point. The relevant pieces of information, then, are the cities and the distances between them. The given set of cities in this problem are: A, B, C, D, E , and F The cost matrix (distances in miles) between any pair of cities is given below: A B C D E F A - 21 13 17 25 9 B 21 - 14 19 21 27 C 13 14 - 8 18 20 D 17 19 8 - 29 17 E 25 21 18 29 - 15 F 9 27 20 17 16 - Implement the following Hill Climbing local search algorithm to solve the above travelling salesman problem.

Use Java programming language.

Algorithm:

1. Start with an initial current state (generated randomly), such as: C, B, E, F, A, D The cost of this state is: = C to B + B to E + E to F + F to A + A to D + D to C = 14 + 21 + 15 + 9 + 17 + 8 = 84 LOOP: 2. Generate three different possible successor moves from the current state as defined below:

i) Generate three random pairs of numbers: (c1, c2), (c3, c4), (c5, c6) Such that: Ci ( 1 <= i <= 6), has a random value between 1 and 6 (inclusive).

Make sure that the two random values in each pair are different. Also, make sure that no two pairs have the same random values. i.e. all pairs are unique.

ii) Then, the possible three successor moves from the current state are: Move 1: swap the city in position c1 with the city in position c2.

For example: given the current state: C, B, E, F, A, D if c1 = 2 and c2= 5, then swap city B (in position 2) with city A (in position 5) in the current sate to get the following move: C, A, E, F, B, D Move

2: swap the city in position c3 with the city in position c4 Move 3: swap the city in position c5 with the city in position c6

3. Calculate the cost of each of these three successor moves.

4. Choose the move with the best move (i.e. least cost) from these three successor moves.

5. If this best move state has a higher cost than the cost of current state, then return this current state as a solution with its cost and exit the algorithm. Otherwise, replace the current state by this best move state. Output: Initial state Best state found by the algorithm The cost of the best state Number of iterations the algorithm execute to find this best state

Suppose as part of a national study of economic competitiveness a marketing research firm randomly sampled 200 adults between the ages of 27 and 35 living in metropolitan Seattle and 180 adults between the ages of 27 and 35 living in metropolitan Minneapolis. Each adult selected in the sample was asked, among other things, whether they had a college degree. From the Seattle sample 66 adults answered yes and from the Minneapolis sample 63 adults answered yes when asked if they had a college degree. Based on the sample data, can we conclude that there is a difference between the population proportions of adults between the ages of 27 and 35 in the two cities with college degrees? Use a level of significance of 0.10 to conduct the appropriate hypothesis test.

Group of answer choices

A Since the test statistic, 1.8214, is greater than the critical value of 1.645, reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is a higher proportion of Seattle adults that have a college degree

B Since the test statistic, 2.0112, is greater than the critical value of 1.645, reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is a higher proportion of Seattle adults that have a college degree.

C Since the test statistic, 0.8921, is not greater than the critical value of 1.645, do not reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is not a higher proportion of Seattle adults that have a college degree.

D Since the test statistic, -0.411, is not greater than the critical value of 1.645, do not reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is not a higher proportion of Seattle adults that have a college degree.

A.) A telephone manufacturer finds that the life spans of its telephones are normally distributed, with a mean of 6.7 years and a standard deviation of 0.5 year. (Round your answers to three decimal places.)

What percent of its telephones will last at least 7.25 years?

What percent of its telephones will last between 5.8 years and 6.8 years?

What percent of its telephones will last less than 6.9 years?

B.) The amount of time customers spend waiting in line at the ticket counter of an amusement park is normally distributed, with a mean of 6.5 min and a standard deviation of 1 min.

Find the z-score for the following data value 8 min.

Find the probability that a customer will wait less than 8 minutes. (Round your answer to three decimal places.)

Find the z-score for the following data value 6 min.

Find the probability that a customer will wait less than 6 minutes. (Round your answer to three decimal places.)