USING MATLAB:

Using the data from table below fit a fourth-order polynomial to the data, but use a label for the year starting at 1 instead of 1872. Plot the data and the fourth-order polynomial estimate you found, with appropriate labels. What values of coefficients did your program find? What is the LMS loss function value for your model on the data?

The data from Exhibit 3 is also in the Excel file income.xls on the course website. Use Excel, along with this file, to determine Mrs. Bella’s real income for the last fifteen years. Do this by first converting each price index from percent by dividing by 100. Then, divide gross income by your converted (adjusted) price index. Using Excel, find the mean, median, standard deviation, and variance of her past real income. Explain the meaning of these statistics. Can you use mean income to forecast future earnings? Take into account both statistical and non-statistical considerations.

Length: 1300 words

Task

Answer the following essay question:

"All technological change is a Faustian bargain. For every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage"

Is this statement valid? Discuss Postman's observation in the context of educational technology in contemporary Australian higher education.

Postman, N. (1995). The end of education: Redefining the value of school. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Overview and Advice

'Higher education' in this question refers to post-compulsory education. While some research may be relevant to K-12, the focus of your discussion should be further education including University, TAFE and trade training, as this raises different issues around motivation, goals and outcomes. Remember that we are interested in evidence-based practice, so statements about participation, attitudes, behaviour and outcomes should be supported with peer-reviewed research and demographic data.

Careful question analysis is important when approaching this essay. What does discuss mean? This topic is potentially broad, so you will need to plan carefully to ensure that your argument is clearly defined and follows a logical progression. Question your own assumptions, and those of the authors you are reading; look for opportunities to demonstrate critical thinking. Use good essay and paragraph structure, and demonstrate your understanding of referencing by supporting your argument with a wide selection of carefully chosen sources.

Important: We are interested in investigating the pros and cons of technology in education; this essay is not about Postman’s broader views, or his work; only the statement presented in the question (which should be mentioned in your introduction).

The Trolley Dodgers

(This case was taken from Contemporary Auditing, 11th Edition, Michael C. Knapp. Copyright 2018 Cengage Learning.)

In 1890, the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers professional baseball team joined the National League. Over the following years, the Dodgers would have considerable difficulty competing with the other baseball teams in the New York City area. Those teams, principal among them the New York Yankees, were much better financed and generally stocked with players of higher caliber.

After nearly seven decades of mostly frustration on and off the baseball field, the Dodgers shocked the sports world by moving to Los Angeles in 1958. Walter O’Malley, the flamboyant owner of the Dodgers, saw an opportunity to introduce professional baseball to the rapidly growing population of the West Coast. More important, O’Malley saw an opportunity to make his team more profitable. As an inducement to the Dodgers, Los Angeles County purchased a goat farm located in Chavez Ravine, an area two miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and gave the property to O’Malley for the site of his new baseball stadium.

Since moving to Los Angeles, the Dodgers have been the envy of the baseball world: “In everything from profit to stadium maintenance ... the Dodgers are the prototype of how a franchise should be run.”1 During the 1980s and 1990s, the Dodgers reigned as the most profitable franchise in baseball with a pretax profit margin approaching 25 percent in many years. In late 1997, Peter O’Malley, Walter O’Malley’s son and the Dodgers’ principal owner, sold the franchise for $350 million to media mogul Rupert Murdoch. A spokesman for Murdoch complimented the O’Malley family for the long-standing success of the Dodgers organization: “The O’Malleys have set a gold standard for franchise ownership.”2

During an interview before he sold the Dodgers, Peter O’Malley attributed the success of his organization to the experts he had retained in all functional areas: “I don’t have to be an expert on taxes, split-fingered fastballs, or labor relations with our ushers. That talent is all available.”3 Edward Campos, a longtime accountant for the Dodgers, was a seemingly perfect example of one of those experts in the Dodgers organization. Campos accepted an entry-level position with the Dodgers as a young man. By 1986, after almost two decades with the club, he had worked his way up the employment hierarchy to become the operations payroll chief.

After taking charge of the Dodgers’ payroll department, Campos designed and implemented a new payroll system, a system that only he fully understood. In fact, Campos controlled the system so completely that he personally filled out the weekly payroll cards for each of the Dodgers’ 400 employees. Campos was known not only for his work ethic but also for his loyalty to the club and its owners: “The Dodgers trusted him, and when he was on vacation, he even came back and did the payroll.”4

Unfortunately, the Dodgers’ trust in Campos was misplaced. Over a period of several years, Campos embezzled several hundred thousand dollars from his employer. According to court records, Campos padded the Dodgers’ payroll by adding fictitious employees to various departments in the organization. In addition, Campos routinely inflated the number of hours worked by several employees and then split the resulting overpayments 50-50 with those individuals.

The fraudulent scheme came unraveled when appendicitis struck down Campos, forcing the Dodgers’ controller to temporarily assume his responsibilities. While completing the payroll one week, the controller noticed that several employees, including ushers, security guards, and ticket salespeople, were being paid unusually large amounts. In some cases, employees earning $7 an hour received weekly paychecks approaching $2,000. Following a criminal investigation and the filing of charges against Campos and his cohorts, all the individuals involved in the payroll fraud confessed.

A state court sentenced Campos to eight years in prison and required him to make restitution of approximately $132,000 to the Dodgers. Another of the conspirators also received a prison sentence. The remaining individuals involved in the payroll scheme made restitution and were placed on probation.

Epilogue

The San Francisco Giants are easily the most heated, if not hated, rival of the Dodgers. In March 2012, a federal judge sentenced the Giants’ former payroll manager to 21 months in prison after she pleaded guilty to embezzling $2.2 million from the Giants organization. An attorney for the Giants testified that the payroll manager “wreaked havoc” on the Giants’ players, executives, and employees. The attorney said that the embezzlement “included more than 40 separate illegal transactions, including changing payroll records and stealing employees’ identities and diverting their tax payments.”5 A federal prosecutor reported that

the payroll manager used the embezzled funds to buy a luxury car, to purchase a second home in San Diego, and to travel.

When initially confronted about her embezzlement scheme, the payroll manager had “denied it completely.”6 She confessed when she was shown the proof that prosecutors had collected. During her sentencing hearing, the payroll manager pleaded with the federal judge to sentence her to five years’ probation but no jail term. She told the judge, “I cannot say how sorry that I am ... that I did this, because it’s not who I am. I have no excuse for it. There is no excuse in the world for taking something that doesn’t belong to you.”7

Endnotes:

R. J. Harris, “Forkball for Dodgers: Costs Up, Gate Off,” Wall Street Journal, 31 August 1990, B1, B4.

R. Newhan, “Dodger Sale Heads for Home,” Los Angeles Times, 5 September 1997, C1, C12.

Harris, “Forkball for Dodgers,” B1.

P. Feldman, “7 Accused of Embezzling $332,583 from Dodgers,” Los Angeles Times, 17 September 1986, Sec. 2, 1, 6.

A. Burack, “Former Giants’ Payroll Manager Sentenced to 21 Months in Prison for Embezzlement,” San Francisco Examiner (online), 26 March 2012.

Ibid.

Ibid.

required:

1)Describe some of the key internal controls you'd expect to find in a payroll system.

2)What internal control weaknesses were evident in the Dodgers’ payroll system?

The Trolley Dodgers

(This case was taken from Contemporary Auditing, 11th Edition, Michael C. Knapp. Copyright 2018 Cengage Learning.)

In 1890, the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers professional baseball team joined the National League. Over the following years, the Dodgers would have considerable difficulty competing with the other baseball teams in the New York City area. Those teams, principal among them the New York Yankees, were much better financed and generally stocked with players of higher caliber.

After nearly seven decades of mostly frustration on and off the baseball field, the Dodgers shocked the sports world by moving to Los Angeles in 1958. Walter O’Malley, the flamboyant owner of the Dodgers, saw an opportunity to introduce professional baseball to the rapidly growing population of the West Coast. More important, O’Malley saw an opportunity to make his team more profitable. As an inducement to the Dodgers, Los Angeles County purchased a goat farm located in Chavez Ravine, an area two miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and gave the property to O’Malley for the site of his new baseball stadium.

Since moving to Los Angeles, the Dodgers have been the envy of the baseball world: “In everything from profit to stadium maintenance ... the Dodgers are the prototype of how a franchise should be run.”1 During the 1980s and 1990s, the Dodgers reigned as the most profitable franchise in baseball with a pretax profit margin approaching 25 percent in many years. In late 1997, Peter O’Malley, Walter O’Malley’s son and the Dodgers’ principal owner, sold the franchise for $350 million to media mogul Rupert Murdoch. A spokesman for Murdoch complimented the O’Malley family for the long-standing success of the Dodgers organization: “The O’Malleys have set a gold standard for franchise ownership.”2

During an interview before he sold the Dodgers, Peter O’Malley attributed the success of his organization to the experts he had retained in all functional areas: “I don’t have to be an expert on taxes, split-fingered fastballs, or labor relations with our ushers. That talent is all available.”3 Edward Campos, a longtime accountant for the Dodgers, was a seemingly perfect example of one of those experts in the Dodgers organization. Campos accepted an entry-level position with the Dodgers as a young man. By 1986, after almost two decades with the club, he had worked his way up the employment hierarchy to become the operations payroll chief.

After taking charge of the Dodgers’ payroll department, Campos designed and implemented a new payroll system, a system that only he fully understood. In fact, Campos controlled the system so completely that he personally filled out the weekly payroll cards for each of the Dodgers’ 400 employees. Campos was known not only for his work ethic but also for his loyalty to the club and its owners: “The Dodgers trusted him, and when he was on vacation, he even came back and did the payroll.”4

Unfortunately, the Dodgers’ trust in Campos was misplaced. Over a period of several years, Campos embezzled several hundred thousand dollars from his employer. According to court records, Campos padded the Dodgers’ payroll by adding fictitious employees to various departments in the organization. In addition, Campos routinely inflated the number of hours worked by several employees and then split the resulting overpayments 50-50 with those individuals.

The fraudulent scheme came unraveled when appendicitis struck down Campos, forcing the Dodgers’ controller to temporarily assume his responsibilities. While completing the payroll one week, the controller noticed that several employees, including ushers, security guards, and ticket salespeople, were being paid unusually large amounts. In some cases, employees earning $7 an hour received weekly paychecks approaching $2,000. Following a criminal investigation and the filing of charges against Campos and his cohorts, all the individuals involved in the payroll fraud confessed.

A state court sentenced Campos to eight years in prison and required him to make restitution of approximately $132,000 to the Dodgers. Another of the conspirators also received a prison sentence. The remaining individuals involved in the payroll scheme made restitution and were placed on probation.

Epilogue

The San Francisco Giants are easily the most heated, if not hated, rival of the Dodgers. In March 2012, a federal judge sentenced the Giants’ former payroll manager to 21 months in prison after she pleaded guilty to embezzling $2.2 million from the Giants organization. An attorney for the Giants testified that the payroll manager “wreaked havoc” on the Giants’ players, executives, and employees. The attorney said that the embezzlement “included more than 40 separate illegal transactions, including changing payroll records and stealing employees’ identities and diverting their tax payments.”5 A federal prosecutor reported that

the payroll manager used the embezzled funds to buy a luxury car, to purchase a second home in San Diego, and to travel.

When initially confronted about her embezzlement scheme, the payroll manager had “denied it completely.”6 She confessed when she was shown the proof that prosecutors had collected. During her sentencing hearing, the payroll manager pleaded with the federal judge to sentence her to five years’ probation but no jail term. She told the judge, “I cannot say how sorry that I am ... that I did this, because it’s not who I am. I have no excuse for it. There is no excuse in the world for taking something that doesn’t belong to you.”7

Endnotes:

R. J. Harris, “Forkball for Dodgers: Costs Up, Gate Off,” Wall Street Journal, 31 August 1990, B1, B4.

R. Newhan, “Dodger Sale Heads for Home,” Los Angeles Times, 5 September 1997, C1, C12.

Harris, “Forkball for Dodgers,” B1.

P. Feldman, “7 Accused of Embezzling $332,583 from Dodgers,” Los Angeles Times, 17 September 1986, Sec. 2, 1, 6.

A. Burack, “Former Giants’ Payroll Manager Sentenced to 21 Months in Prison for Embezzlement,” San Francisco Examiner (online), 26 March 2012.

Ibid.

Ibid.

required:

1)What "red flag" was present that should have alerted management to Campos' scheme?

2) Identify audit procedures that might have led to the discovery of the fraudulent scheme masterminded by Campos

Your firm designs, manufactures, and markets children’s toys for sale in the U.S. Almost90% of your production is done in China. During the 1990s, U.S. relations with China improved.Even though there were many disagreements between the two countries, the United Statesgranted normal trade status to China and supported China’s membership in the WTO in 2001.Your firm invested heavily in China during that time. You have developed close ties to Chinesesuppliers and have come to depend greatly on inexpensive Chinese labor and the lower costs ofdoing business therYou are now concerned about increasing political tension between China and the United Statesover a variety of issues: China’s s treatment of the Tibetan people, reports about the use of prisonlabor to manufacture goods for export, China’s population policies, and differences over relationswith communist North Korea. The United States has also accused China of corporate and industrial
espionage in the United States to obtain scientific, industrial, and trade secrets, and of hackinginto corporate and government computer networks. There are also disagreements over China’s
censorship of Internet search providers, and over the protection of U.S. intellectual property rightsin China. The United States is also concerned with China’s tax policies, which are said to discriminate against imported goods, and also with China’s state subsidies to domestic industry.
The U.S. accuses China of currency manipulations of the yuan, making Chinese goods unfairly cheap in foreign markets and imports into China artificially expensive. Most worrisome is the potential for conflict over Taiwan, with which the United States has had a mutual defense pact for 60 years. China claims Taiwan under its “One China” reunification policy, while accusing the United
States of fostering “independence” there. Despite the issues, both countries recognize their deep economic reliance on each other
Provide a conclusion about us and China trade issues by analysing the above statements and provide suitable recommendations for avoiding them? provide answer with 1 academic reference?

Simpson's Paradox, Wage Discrepancy: USE SOFTWARE Here is a fictitious example where an average across categories conflicts with the averages obtained within categories. This is called Simpson's Paradox.

Suppose you own a contracting company and employ 16 people (8 males and 8 females). Your employees are paid on an hourly basis and the wages (in dollars per hour) are given in the table below. You are accused of discriminatory pay practices because the average wage for the males ($32.25 per hour) is greater than the average wage for the females ($27.75 per hour).

(a) Within the category of less than 5 years of experience, calculate the average hourly rate for the males and the females. Round your answer to 2 decimal places.

For males with less than 5 years of experience,

x_male = $ per hour.

For females with less than 5 years of experience, x_female =$ per hour.

(b) Within the category of more than 5 years of experience, calculate the average hourly rate for the males and the females. Round your answer to 2 decimal places.

For males with more than 5 years of experience,

x_male = $ per hour.

For females with more than 5 years of experience,

x_female = $    per hour.

(c) Within each category, who has the higher average?

females

males    

(d) What caused the discrepancy between the overall male/female averages and those found within each category?

Workers with more than 5 years of experience get paid more.

There were more males with over 5 years of experience.    

There were not many females with more than 5 years of experience.

All of these contributed to the discrepancy.

How can I apply the data that is in the box to these questions? Specifically, part F. Thanks!

1. Some tennis players make audible noises when producing their groundstrokes (i.e., forehand, backhand), often quite loudly. For example, some of Maria Sharapova’s grunts have been measured at over 100 decibels (roughly as loud as a lawnmower or motorcycle). Given the loudness of these grunts, some have accused “grunters” of cheating by distracting their opponents. But are grunts actually distracting? Sinnett and Kingstone (2010) attempted to answer this question. In their study, participants were presented with videos of a tennis player hitting a ball to either side of a tennis court. For half of the participants, grunts were digitally added to the video at the point that the tennis player made contact with the ball, and for half of the participants, no grunts were added to the video. The participants’ task was to respond as quickly as possible, indicating whether the ball was being hit to the left- or right-hand side of the court. Below are the summary statistics of the study, with mean response times (i.e., time required to make a decision as to the trajectory of the ball) and standard deviations for both the grunt group and the no grunt group. The researchers reasoned that if grunting negatively impacts the opponent’s ability to judge the trajectory of the ball, then response times should be longer for the grunt group than for the no grunt group. Do the data support their hypothesis?

1. What is the null hypothesis?

2. What is the research hypothesis?

3. What is the critical value of your test statistic? Be sure to specify df.

4. What is the obtained value of your test statistic?

-First, calculate the pooled variance.

Note: the sum of squares for each sample has already been calculated and is provided in the data box above (for the grunt sample, SS = 3100, and for the no grunt sample, SS = 2511)

-Second, calculate the t-statistic.

5. What is your statistical conclusion?

On September 7, 2017, Equifax announced a massive security breach. While
the breach was originally discovered on July 29, the announcement was
delayed by several months. An estimated 145 million US consumers were
affected. The breach resulted in the loss of the following details:
• Names
• Social Security numbers
• Birth dates
• Addresses
• Driver license numbers (at least in some cases)
Equifax attributes the breach to a website application vulnerability that was
exploited by criminals. The Apache Software Foundation believes that the
vulnerability was possibly caused by the March Struts bug. Experts allege
that once a vulnerability is exploited, it allows attackers to gain a foothold.
Generally, following the exploit, the attacker becomes a system user and
hence owns the web server process.
There are mounting concerns that Equifax could have prevented the breach
if simple procedures and best practices were followed. Equifax has been
accused of incompetence in regard to the protection of individual data and
irresponsible behavior in responding to the breach. A patch for the website
application vulnerability that was exploited was available several months
before the attack, in March 2017. Even though Equifax had more than two
months to take remedial actions and apply the patch, no action was taken.
There are several questions that emerge. Is Equifax competent enough to
be the data steward for the public? Why did Equifax take so long to notify the
public? Interestingly, the website set up by Equifax to address questions
about the breach and offer free credit monitoring was itself vulnerable. Why
was Equifax so negligent in handling and responding to the breach?
1. Develop an ideal response strategy for Equifax.
2. Suggest how:
a. A technical security strategy could have helped Equifax
b. A formally defined process could have helped Equifax
c. A normatively developed approach could have helped Equifax
3. Following the breach, what could Equifax have done to protect their
reputation?

Simpson's Paradox, Wage Discrepancy: Here is a fictitious example where an average across categories conflicts with the averages obtained within categories. This is called Simpson's Paradox.

Suppose you own a contracting company and employ 16 people (8 males and 8 females). Your employees are paid on an hourly basis and the wages (in dollars per hour) are given in the table below. You are accused of discriminatory pay practices because the average wage for the males ($32.50 per hour) is greater than the average wage for the females ($28.50 per hour).

(a) Within the category of less than 5 years of experience, calculate the average hourly rate for the males and the females. Round your answer to 2 decimal places.
For males with less than 5 years of experience,

x_male =

$  per hour.
For females with less than 5 years of experience,

x_female =

$  per hour.

(b) Within the category of more than 5 years of experience, calculate the average hourly rate for the males and the females. Round your answer to 2 decimal places.
For males with more than 5 years of experience,

x_male =

$  per hour.
For females with more than 5 years of experience,

x_female =

$  per hour.

(c) Within each category, who has the higher average?

femalesmales    

(d) What caused the discrepancy between the over-all male/female averages and those found within each category?

Workers with more than 5 years of experience get paid more.There were more males with over 5 years of experience.    There were not many females with more than 5 years of experience.All of these contributed to the discrepancy.

Additional Materials