The health of the bear population in a park is monitored by periodic measurements taken from anesthetized bears. A sample of the weights of such bears is given below. Find a​ 95% confidence interval estimate of the mean of the population of all such bear weights. The​ 95% confidence interval for the mean bear weight is the following.

data table 80 344 416 348 166 220 262 360 204 144 332 34 140 180

Technology is taking much of the fun out of finding a place to park the car. Now, in cities from New York to Seattle, the door is open to a host of wireless technologies seeking to improve the parking meter even further. Chicago and Sacramento, CA, among others are equipping enforcement vehicles with infrared cameras capable of scanning license plates even at 30 miles an hour. Using a global positioning system, the cameras can tell which individual cars have parked too long in a two-hour parking zone. At a cost of $75,000 a camera, the system is an expensive upgrade of the old method of chalking tires and then coming back two hours later to see if the car has moved.

Parking czars in municipalities across the country are starting to realize parking meters' original goals: generating revenue and creating a continuous turnover of parking spaces on city streets. Clearly, their main questions are "Would there be enough new revenue from installing the expensive parking monitoring devices?" and "How many devices should be installed to maximize the revenue streams?" From the device manufacturing's point of view, the question is "Would there be enough demand for their products to justify the investment required in new facilities and marketing?" If the manufacturing decides to go ahead and market the products, but the actual demand is far less than its forecast or the adoption of the technology is too low, what would be the potential financial risk?

Soap Makers International

Several years ago, Ingrid Krause wanted some international expertise and applied for a transfer to her company’s soap division, which is located south of Warsaw, Poland. The soap division manufactures hand soap for use in a large number of settings, from hospitals to luxury hotels. Ingrid was awarded the transfer to the soap division and was assigned to the accounting department. She is responsible for overseeing the costing and probability analysis of the various soaps and soap-making processes. During her tenure in the soap division, there were numerous changes in the number of soaps manufactured and the processes to make the different soaps. Consequently, Ingrid’s position required her to consider changes in the accounting processes to reflect the changes in the soap division’s business.

For several decades, the company’s soap-making process required a large labour force that manufactured and packaged the soap mainly by hand. Local economic changes meant that the labour force that the factory required was not as available as it had been in the past. As a result, the division was experiencing slower processing time, and more snap being rejected during inspections because of quality concerns. To address the issues related to the lack of labour availability, the division’s management decided three years ago that automation was the way to go. Consequently, over the last three years, the soap making processes have changed with the implementation of automation.

The automation of the soap making processes have allowed for a much larger variety of soap and packing, a reduced direct labour force and direct labour costs, and a higher level of traceability of costs to the various soaps because of technological improvements. Soaps made for industrial applications require different ingredients, less time in processing, less time in finishing, and less time in and cheaper packaging than do soaps for the hotel industry. The costs of materials and packaging are directly traceable to the various types of soaps through new software that uses bar codes and counters to trace material costs to the various soaps directly.

Ingrid feels that the current costing system should be revisited. The cost driver for allocation of the overhead costs (such as supervisory salaries and plant utilities) have always been direct labour hours cost. However, given the decline in the use of labour due to automation, Ingrid is questioning its suitability as a basis of allocation. Ingrid would like to explore activity based costing to allocate overhead costs.

Ingrid has gathered cost data for two representative soaps: one sold to hospitals and one sold to hotels. Further, Ingrid has gathered data from the automated system on the amount of time each type of soap spends in the three manufacturing processes: processing, finishing, and packaging. The soap is produced in large batches, consequently, the data are adjusted to reflect the average cost per 100g of soap. The data for type of soap for one month’s production are in Exhibit 1.

REQUIRED

1. Calculate the costs (of direct material, direct labour, and overhead) for each of the two representative types of soap using direct labour as the basis for the allocation of overhead.

EXHIBIT 1 – COSTS FOR ONE MONTH’S PRODUCTION OF SOAP

EXHIBIT 2 – TIME REQUIRED FOR ONE MONTH’S PRODUCTION OF SOAP

ADS Fashions is a specialty clothing store. Its credit managers are trying to decide which credit policy to choose from the following 3 proposals.

The company has an annual opportunity cost and cost of capital of 10%. Assume Variable Costs occur at time 0, and that Sales less Bad Debt Costs less Credit Administration & Collection expenses all occur on the latest payment date that customers pay for credit sales. The Variable Cost Ratio (VCR) is 40% for each of the proposals.

Find the PV of revenues less PV Costs for each of the following policies to see which one gives the highest present value (PV), and explain which Policy would be best, i.e. give the highest Daily PV of Revenues – PV Costs.

(Policy 1) Under its existing credit policy, the company has Annual Credit Sales of $10,000,000. Bad debts as a percentage of total sales of 2%. Credit administration and Collection expenses as a percentage of total sales of 3%. Customers take on average 30 days to pay.

(Policy 2) Under a proposed new, more relaxed credit policy 2, the firm’s Annual Credit Sales are expected to rise to $12,000,000. Bad debts as a percentage of total sales are expected to rise to 2.5% of sales. Credit administration and Collection expenses as a percentage of total sales are expected to go up to 3.5%, and Customers are expected to take 40 days to pay.

(Policy 3) Under a proposed new credit policy 3, the firm would offer a Discount of 2%, with terms of 2/10, net 40, and 50% of customers would be expected to take the 2% discount and pay on day 10, and 50% of customers would be expected to not take the discount and pay on day 40. Credit Sales annually are expected to go up to $12,500,000. Bad debts are be expected to fall to 2%, and Credit administration and Collection expenses as a percentage of sales are expected to fall to 1.5%.

Use Newton’s method to find the real root (in four decimal places) near 0.5 of the equation x^5 −4x^2 + 2 = 0

After crossing over has already occurred, the ________ assembles near the centromere and allows microtubules to attach so that centromeres can be pulled to opposite poles

Describe the difference between a substitutional solute atom, an interstitial solute atom, and a vacancy. Discuss whether the stress in the material near the defect will be tensile or compressive

the bacteria in some foods are sterilized by placing the food near a source of ionizing radiation. Does that mean that the food becomes radioactive? Explain your answer.

Find two linearly independent solutions near the regular singular point x₀= 0

x²y'' + (6x + x²)y' + xy = 0