A researcher at the Annenberg School of Communication is interested in studying the use of smartphones among young adults. She wants to know the average amount of time that college students in the United States hold a smartphone in their hand each day. The researcher obtains data for one day from a random sample of 25 college students (who own smartphones). She installs an app that registers whenever the smartphone is being held and the screen is on. The sample mean is 230 minutes, with a standard deviation of 11 minutes.

What is the 99% confidence interval for average daily time a smartphone is used among college students?

What is the lower bound of the confidence interval?   

What is the upper bound of the confidence interval?

What decision should the researcher make about the null hypothesis? Be sure to explain your answer (e.g., what numbers provide the basis for this decision?).

Would our decision about the null hypothesis have been different if the researcher had initially hypothesized that women spend more time talking on their phones than men?

Explain all parts/information necessary to answer this question.

The dean of the a school has observed for several years and found that the probability distribution of the salary of the alumni’s first job after graduation is normal. The college collected information from 144 alumni and finds that the mean of their salary is $58k. Assuming a 95% confidence level, please do the following

1. Suppose the dean believes that the average salary of the population should be about $59k per year, with a standard deviation of $2k. We need to conclude that the mean salary is less than what the dean has believed to be:

(a) What are the null and alternate hypotheses ?

(b) What is the level of significance ?

(c) What is the standard error?

(d) Decide on the test statistic and calculate the value of the test statistic (hint: write the equation and calculate the statistic?

(e) What’s your decision regarding the hypothesis and interpret the result using test-score rejection region rule or p value rule.

The Case
This case was developed by the MIT Sloan School of Management. It is part of their “Learning Edge,” a free learning resource. This case was prepared by John Minahan and Cate Reavis. This case is based on actual events. Actual names are changed; some of the narrative is fictional.
In early 2012, as he prepared to enter a meeting with the board of trustees of a state pension fund, Harry Markham, CFA, couldn't help but feel professionally conflicted.
Since earning his Master of Finance in 2004 at one of the top business schools in the United States, Markham had worked for Investment Consulting Associates (ICA), a firm that gave investment advice to pension funds.
Since joining the firm, Markham had grown increasingly concerned over how public sector pension fund liabilities were being valued. If he valued the liabilities using the valuation and financial analysis principles he learned in his Master of Finance and CFA programs, he would get numbers almost twice as high as those reported by the funds.
This would not be such a problem if he were allowed to make adjustments to the official numbers, but neither his clients nor his firm was interested in questioning them. The board did not want to hear that the fund's liabilities were much larger than the number being captured by the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) rules and his firm wanted to keep the board of trustees happy.
How, Markham wondered, was he supposed to give sound investment advice to state treasurers and boards of trustees working from financials that he knew were grossly misleading?
Markham's dilemma came down to conflicting loyalties: loyalty to his firm, loyalty to the boards of trustees and others who made investment decisions for public pensions and who, in turn, hired his firm to provide investment expertise, and loyalty to the pensioners themselves, as Markham believed was called for by the CFA Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct.
In his role as investment advisor, the differing views on how to value pension liabilities challenged Markham on both a practical and an ethical level. "My role is not to decide the value of liabilities," he explained.
That is the actuary's job. My role is to give investment advice. However, as an investment advisor, the first thing you want to understand is the client's circumstances. That is a basic ethical precept. The CFA professional standards say you should never give advice without knowing what your client's circumstances are. And so what happens is that we have these funds that are grossly short of money, but the accounting does not show them as being grossly short of money. I make the case within my firm that we need to know where we
are starting before we give advice. And perhaps our advice would be different if the client knew they were starting from a multi-billion-dollar hole that they're seemingly not aware of.
In addition to the fact that Markham was constrained by not having what he believed were accurate accounting figures to work with, he was also well aware that his clients did not like bad news. He feared that if he was to raise the liability issue, he and his firm could very well be fired:
Most plan sponsors want to minimize near-term contributions to their pension fund, and this makes them predisposed to points of view that justify higher discount rates. Furthermore, investment committees and staffs consider their mandate to be to earn, at least, the discount rate assumed by actuaries. The social pressure to embrace overly optimistic return expectations can be enormous. As one plan sponsor told me, ‘It would not be in plan members' interest to lower the discount rate because the increase in liabilities would so shock the taxpayers and the state legislature that it would undermine political support for the plan.' Given this context, plan sponsors do not want to hear the news that they are less well funded than the numbers show and may blame the messenger. Moreover, if it is an elected official you are dealing with; they do not want a crisis on their watch.
Nevertheless, an investment advisor has a professional responsibility to help plan sponsors make sound investment decisions, and understanding one's financial condition is a necessary precursor to making sound investment decisions. This may require telling plan sponsors things they do not want to hear. If investment advisors do not do this, they become enablers of their clients' denial and of the poor decisions that result from that denial.
As a CFA charterholder, Markham annually attested to his compliance with the Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct. Specifically, CFAs must not knowingly make any misrepresentations in investment analysis recommendations. "So if you have an investment recommendation that is based on bad numbers," Markham began, "numbers that are legal and comply with the rules, but you know they are bad, are you violating this ethical rule?"
As Markham was summoned into the conference room to begin his presentation to the board of the state pension fund, he was wrestling with whether or not to raise the liability issue. He knew there were risks either way. There was the risk that his client would choose to take their business elsewhere if he told them what he believed to be the fund's financial reality. Furthermore, such a move would not only result in lost business but would likely be interpreted as disloyalty towards his firm.
Then he thought about what did not happen during the 2008 financial crisis, and this reality gnawed at him:
When the subprime crisis played out, everybody was asking why, even though all these people had a role in making it happen, no one spoke up? Therefore, does somebody who is playing a bit part in creating a reprise of the last crisis have a responsibility to speak up on behalf of the pensioners
themselves even though this is contrary to the wishes of their employer and the board of trustees who has hired their employer to provide investment advice?What are the alternatives with which Mr. Markham must select? Be sure to discuss relevant laws, codes, standards, and regulations.

In a study on students’ intention to apply for graduate school, a researcher is interested in the difference between Sociology majors and Justice Studies majors at a large state university. The research hypothesizes that the proportion of sociology majors who intend to apply for graduate schools is higher than that of Justice Studies majors. To test this hypothesis, the research interviews 60 juniors and seniors majoring in sociology and 105 in Justice Studies majors. Of the 60 sociology majors, 35 say that they are considering applying; and of the 105 Justice majors, 40 say that are considering applying. Sociology Justice Studies N1 = 60 N2 = 105 f1 = 35 f2 = 40 Please test the hypothesis stated above (i.e. the proportion of sociology majors who are considering applying for graduate school is higher than the proportion of Justice Studies majors.) (10 points). (Note: this is a hypothetical research situation and none of the statistics presented in the above table is “real.”)

Create a stored procedure that can be used to add a student to the school and a section of a course. 1. If the student already exists, then just add him to the section (do not update information like address). 2. The procedure will require the following arguments (see table definition for types): A. Salutation B. First Name C. Last Name D. Street Address (including City) E. ZIP Code F. Phone Number G. Employer Name (if any) H. Course Number I. Section Number 3. The program should error if any constraints are violated (no last name, bad zip, bad course, bad section) 4. It should rollback changes if these or any other errors occur. 5. The dates in the STUDENT and ENROLLMENT tables should be set to the day the procedure is run. 6. Don't forget that each table has 4 extra required fields ( CREATED_BY, CREATED_DATE, MODIFIED_BY, and MODIFIED_DATE). The current user should be in both 'BY's and the day the procedure is run in both 'DATE's. 7. To test the procedure insert yourself into course 120, section 5. 8. If the insert fails (usually due to the ZIP code not being in the ZIPCODE table, then find a legal ZIP code in that table and use it instead of your own or insert you own ZIP into the table and rerun the procedure. 9. The following SQL can be used to verify that you have successfully placed yourself in the course: SELECT S.LAST_NAME [Last Name], s.FIRST_NAME [First Name], e.ENROLL_DATE [Enrolled On] FROM ENROLLMENT e INNER JOIN SECTION c ON c.SECTION_ID = e.SECTION_ID INNER JOIN STUDENT s ON s.STUDENT_ID = e.STUDENT_ID WHERE c.COURSE_NO =120 AND c.SECTION_NO = 5 structure of

[STUDENT]

STUDENT_ID(PK)                INT                        NOT NULL

SALUTATION                       VARCHAR(5)         NULL

FIRST_NAME                      VARCHAR(25)       NULL

LAST_NAME                        VARCHAR(25)       NOT NULL

STREET_ADDRESS              VARCHAR(50)       NULL

ZIP(FK)                                VARCHAR(5)         NOT NULL

PHONE                                VARCHAR(15)       NULL

EMPLOYER                          VARCHAR(60)       NULL

REGISTRATION_DATE            DATE       NOT NULL

[SECTION]

SECTION_ID(PK)                        INT                        NOT NULL

COURSE_NO(FK)                      INT                        NOT NULL

SECTION_NO                            TINYINT                 NOT NULL

START_DATE_TIME                  DATE                     NOT NULL

LOCATION                                 VARCHAR(30)       NULL

INSTRUCTOR_ID(FK)                INT                        NOT NULL

CAPACITY                                  TINYINT                 NULL

[ENROLLMENT]

STUDENT_ID(PK)(FK)                INT                        NOT NULL

SECTION_ID(PK)(FK)                 INT                        NOT NULL

ENROLL_DATE                          DATE                     NOT NULL

FINAL_GRADE                           TINYINT                 NULL

[ZIPCODE]

ZIP(PK)                                      CHAR(5)                NOT NULL

CITY                                           VARCHAR(25)       NULL

STATE                                        VARCHAR(2)         NULL

[COURSE]

COURSE_NO(PK)    INT                    NOT NULL

DESCRIPTION          VARCHAR(50)   NOT NULL

COST                       MONEY             NULL

PRERQUISITE(FK)   INT                    NULL

In C++

Create a class that simulates a school calendar for a course and has a warner that provides the school administration with the option of warning students when the last day is that a student is permitted to drop the course. (Allow administrators to warn or not, as they wish. Do not make this a required function.)

You will assume in this calendar that there are 12 months in a year, 4 weeks in a month, and 7 days in a week. You can represent any day by 3 numbers. For example 12/3/2 would represent the 2nd day in the 3rd week of the 12th month. In this class you should:

• Store a calendar day in terms of month, week, and day. (You should represent the month from 1 to 12, week from 1 to 4, and day from 1 to 7.)

• Initialize the calendar to a specified day. (For example, you can initialize the calendar to 1/1/1.)

• Allow the calendar to increment to the next day. (Hint: You need to take into account things such as whether the calendar is at the 3rd week, 6th day. Then you may need to consider iterated if statements.) In addition, you need to prevent the possibility of going beyond the 12th month, 4th week, and 7th day.

• Set the warner and have the warner print out "TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO DROP THE COURSE" when the set date is reached. (Hint: You may wish to create a private function that provides the wished-for printout when the date is reached and the warner is on.)

• Display the present date.

• Use the class in a program that uses the functions requiring displaying of time and setting of the warner.

Include 2 constructors. One constructor should be the default constructor that will initialize the object to 1/1/1. The second constructor should take parameters for months, weeks, and days. Both constructors will provide the private members with the date. In addition, have both constructors set the warner as off. (You will need a Boolean attribute that determines whether the warner is on or off. The administrators have the option of using the warner. They do not have to provide a warning to students if they do not wish to. In fact, the constructor should set the default as the warner is off and will not provide a warning to students.) The function or method you use to set the warner will set the warner on. (Hint: Have the class also have attribute of month, week, and day and the ability to be on or off with a Boolean variable for the warner.)

Output: Students should develop the output for this assignment to be as clear and concise as possible. Provide as much detail as possible in regards to the dates and corresponding calendar timeline.

A professor in the accounting department of a business school claims that there is much more variability in the final exam scores of students taking the introductory accounting course as a requirement than for students taking the course as part of a major in accounting. Random samples of 16 non-accounting majors (group 1) and 15 accounting majors (group 2) are taken from the professor's class roster in his large lecture, and the following results are computed based on the final exam scores:

n₁ = 16, S₁² = 154.6,    n₂ = 15, S₂² = 48.5

(a) At the 0.05 level of significance, is there evidence to support the professor's claim?

(b) What assumptions do you make here about the two populations in order to justify your use of the F test?

You are in a reunion of high school classmates. There is much food, and the drinks flow freely. Many of your classmates join the sciences and engineering fields; some have become doctors, others are lawyers, and still other are entrepreneurs. You alone joined the accountancy profession. Consider the following: 1. Gelai, a classmate since grade school (now a doctor) commended on your line of work: " I don't know anything about how an auditor perform his/her work. It seems that there is no scientific approach to the process." She continued, "all I know is that you auditors are on the lookout for fraud...other auditors prepare income tax returns for us professionals." 2. Lotlot, one of your teammates in spelling competition, is now a high-school teacher. She says, "audits? It's not surprising that you became an accountant...auditor...whatever. With all your talents in mathematics..." 3. Owell is now a lawyer. He was the class salutatorian, and has a very competitive nature. He heard Lotlot's remarks and said, "My friend,as class valedictorian you should have joined a more useful profession! Look at me. I serve the public. Look at you... audits? Bah! They are NOT productive. An audit has nothing to do with GNP or the public interest. Rather than create value, auditors like you simply check on someone what someone else has done." Requirement: Each situation illustrates a common misconception about accountants and auditor. Prepare a proper reply to each classmate.

Mrs. Ayesha Said is a 39-year-old Muslim Arab housewife and mother of six who immigrated to the United States from a rural town in southern Iraq 2 years ago. Her mother-in-law and her husband, Mr. Ahmed Said, accompanied her to the United States as participants in a post–Gulf War resettlement program, after they spent some time in a Saudi Arabian refugee camp. Their relocation was coordinated by a local international institution that provided an array of services for finding employment, establishing a household, enrolling the children in public schools, and applying for federal aid programs.

Mr. Ahmed, who completed the equivalent of high school, works in a local plastics factory. He speaks some English. He plans to attend an English-language class held at the factory for its many Iraqi employees. Mrs. Ayesha, who has very little formal schooling, spends her day cooking and caring for her children and spouse, with the assistance of her mother-in-law. She leaves their home, a three-bedroom upper flat in a poor area of the city, only when she accompanies her husband shopping or when they attend gatherings at the local Islamic center. These events are quite enjoyable because most of those using the center are also recently arrived Iraqi immigrants. She also socializes with other Iraqi women by telephone. Except for interactions with the American personnel at the institute, Mr. Ahmed and Mrs. Ayesha Said remain quite isolated from American society. They have discussed moving to Detroit because of its large Arab community.

Four of the Said children attend public elementary schools, participating in the English as a Second Language (ESL) program. Mr. Ahmed and Mrs. Ayesha are dismayed by their children’s rapid acculturation. Although Muslims do not practice holidays such as Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Easter, their children plead to participate in these school-related activities.

Mrs. Ayesha is being admitted to the surgical unit after a modified radical mastectomy to treat breast cancer. According to the physician’s notes, she discovered a “lump that didn’t go away” about 6 months ago while breast-feeding her youngest child. She delayed seeking care, hoping that inshallah, the lump would vanish. Access to care was also limited by Mrs. Ayesha’s preference for a female physician and her family’s financial constraints—that is, finding a female surgeon willing to treat a patient with limited financial means. Her past medical history includes measles, dental problems, headache, and a reproductive history of seven pregnancies. One child, born prematurely, died soon after birth. As you enter the room, you see Mrs. Ayesha dozing. Her husband, mother-in-law, and a family friend, who speaks English and Arabic and acts as the translator, are at her bedside.

1. Describe Arab Americans with respect to religion, education, occupation, income, and English-language skills. Compare the Said family with Arab Americans as a group.

600,000 students in 79 countries take a PISA test every three years to evaluate their learning in reading, math, and science. Students in the Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Zhejiang regions in China scored the highest average scores in all three subjects in 2018. Canada ranked around 12^th overall but has had steadily declining scores in math and science. We have data on average math scores and characteristics of 500 school districts across Canada. This problem asks you to build up a regression model to look for factors that affect average math test scores in various school districts in Canada.

I run a basic regression equation that explains math scores (SCORE) as a function of:
1. STR = the student teacher ratio. (number of students per teacher)
2. SPEND = government spending per student in the school district in dollars per student.
3. HIESL= a dummy variable=1 if the percentage of students learning English as a new language is above 20% and =0 if it is below 20%.
The regression also includes the usual constant term.

There is a categorical variable called PROVINCE for the province of the school district. This variable =1 for Ontario, =2 for Quebec, =3 for Alberta, and =4 for British Columbia.

There is also a categorical variable called INCOME which is the average per capita income of households in the school district. INCOME = 1 if the district has average per capital income below $40000, =2 if the district has per capita income between $40000 and $60000, =3 if the district has per capita income >= $60000.

How do I add PROVINCE and INCOME into my regression model? Which specification is correct?

• A.

  SCORE = b₂STR + b₃SPEND + b₄HIESL + b₅ON + b₆QC + b₇BC + b₈AB + b₉INC1 + b₁₀INC2 + b₁₁INC3

  where
  ON = 1 if the district is in Ontario and 0 otherwise
  QC = 1 if the district is in Quebec and 0 otherwise
  BC = 1 if the district is in BC and 0 otherwise
  AB = 1 if the district is in Alberta and 0 otherwise
  INC1 = 1 if the district is the low income range and 0 otherwise
  INC2 = 1 if the district is the middle income range and 0 otherwise
  INC3 = 1 if the district is the high income range and 0 otherwise

• B.

  SCORE = b₁ +b₂STR + b₃SPEND + b₄HIESL + b₅PROVINCE + b₆INCOME

  where PROVINCE takes values 1 to 4
  and INCOME takes values 1 to 3.

• C.

  SCORE = b₁ + b₂STR + b₃SPEND + b₄HIESL +  b₅ON + b₆QC + b₇BC + b₈AB + b₉INC1 + b₁₀INC2 + b₁₁INC3

  where
  ON = 1 if the district is in Ontario and 0 otherwise
  QC = 1 if the district is in Quebec and 0 otherwise
  BC = 1 if the district is in BC and 0 otherwise
  AB = 1 if the district is in Alberta and 0 otherwise
  INC1 = 1 if the district is the low income range and 0 otherwise
  INC2 = 1 if the district is the middle income range and 0 otherwise
  INC3 = 1 if the district is the high income range and 0 otherwise

• D.

  SCORE = b₁ +b₂STR + b₃SPEND + b₄HIESL + b₅ON + b₅QC + b₆BC + b₇INC2 + b₈INC3

  where
  ON = 1 if the district is in Ontario and 0 otherwise
  QC = 1 if the district is in Quebec and 0 otherwise
  BC = 1 if the district is in BC and 0 otherwise
  INC2 = 1 if the district is the middle income range and 0 otherwise
  INC3 = 1 if the district is the high income range and 0 otherwise

• E.

  SCORE = b₁ +b₂STR + b₃SPEND + b₄HIESL + b₅ON + b₆QC + b₇BC + b₈AB + b₇INC2 + b₈INC3

  where
  ON = 1 if the district is in Ontario and 0 otherwise
  QC = 1 if the district is in Quebec and 0 otherwise
  BC = 1 if the district is in BC and 0 otherwise
  AB = 1 if the district is in Alberta and 0 otherwise
  INC2 = 1 if the district is the middle income range and 0 otherwise
  INC3 = 1 if the district is the high income range and 0 otherwise