Zerox Corporation, a manufacturer of office equipment, is headquartered in Connecticut. Zerox stock (ZRX) is traded on all major exchanges. The price of common stock has languished in the $7-9 range, for the past several years. Annual sales are $18 billion. Zerox has been subject to intense domestic and internal competition in recent years, especially in the Office Copier Division (OCD). In response to the competition, OCD has changed the models of the copiers more frequently. In the past, any of the copier models were expected to remain in the market for 5 to 7 years. In response to the competition, OCD is changing each model in their product line every 3 to 5 years. This competitive tactic has increased market share. However, there has been a decline in productivity of repairing machines that are in the field. The Repair and Maintenance Operations (RMO) unit provided a detailed report on declining repair productivity. Their findings state that the more frequent introduction of new copier models, to replace existing models, has created a lack of familiarity in repairing copiers. The RMO report indicates that learning-by-doing has suffered. Statistical models of the learning curve indicate a 20% decline in productivity because of the frequent introduction of new models. The current labor costs for field repair and maintenance is $7,000,000 annually and is expected to stay at that level for several years. TRAINING EDGE The OCD problem, as described above, was turned over to the Professional Training (PT) unit of Zerox. PT has responded with a program proposal called the Training Edge. The proposal requires state-of-the-arts training for all field repair personnel. PT estimates that the Training Edge program will immediately restore the 20% loss of labor productivity. In other words, if you accept the project the loss of productivity goes away. Training Edge will require repair personnel to engage in five-day training programs annually to review the technical aspects of new copier models. The program will include virtual reality labs, physical repair labs, training videos, and manuals. A training center is also proposed at a site near corporate HQ, which is owned by Zerox and managed my Zerox Land. The building is currently leased for $575,000 annually. Fortunately, the lease expires soon. The lease provides a five-year option to renew at $575,000 annually, but can be cancelled by either party. Zerox can cancel the lease, which would provide an excellent training facility, though the current tenant would like to renew the lease. PT commissioned a study by Tonka Associates to consider retrofitting the building for training. The Tonka Associates study indicates that the lab space, classroom space, etc. will cost $900,000 to retrofit the building. Tonka was paid $47,000 for the study. PT estimates that annual operating expenses for Training Edge are: Videos $40,000 Training Manuals 20,000 Instructors 100,000 Instructional Material 5,000 Additionally, hotel-food-travel expenses for students visiting the training center from the several districts of OCD are estimated as $90,000 annually. THE FINANCIAL DECISION OCD is delighted with the concept of Training Edge. They have asked PT to develop a financial justification for the program. OCD wants the proposal to cover only the next five years, since senior Zerox management intends to sell the OCD at that time. The corporate tax rate is 35%. The training center building is fully depreciated. However, the retrofitting of the building is considered a capital improvement. It will be depreciated over the next three years on a straight-line depreciation basis. After "initial investments" today (retrofitting and so forth) all annual benefits and costs are assumed to occur at the end of the year, for each year over five years. Training Edge terminates at the end of five years and there are no salvage costs, etc., incurred at the end of the program. The required return for Zerox is 16%.

Mariner Corporation, which manufactures sail boats, ordered dry dock equipment from Brown Corporation. This equipment was built for the specialized needs of Mariner, and could not be used by any other company. Instead of purchasing the equipment, Mariner elected to enter into a long term lease agreement with Brown Co. The lease contract was signed on January 1, 2020.   It calls for 12 payments of $15,000, with the first one due on December 31, 2020. The lessor’s implicit interest rate is not known. Mariner’s incremental borrow rate is 8%.

a. Is this lease a finance or operating lease? Explain.

b. Present the journal entry to be made by Mariner when the lease is signed.

c. Show the journal entry that Mariner will make for the December 31, 2020 payment.

Mariner Corporation, which manufactures sail boats, ordered dry dock equipment from Brown Corporation. This equipment was built for the specialized needs of Mariner, and could not be used by any other company. Instead of purchasing the equipment, Mariner elected to enter into a long term lease agreement with Brown Co. The lease contract was signed on January 1, 2020. It calls for 12 payments of $15,000, with the first one due on December 31, 2020. The lessor’s implicit interest rate is not known. Mariner’s incremental borrow rate is 8%. a. Is this lease a finance or operating lease? Explain. b. Present the journal entry to be made by Mariner when the lease is signed. c. Show the journal entry that Mariner will make for the December 31, 2020 payment.

1. Develop a well-structured MATLAB function to compute the Maclaurin series expansion

   for the cosine function and name the function cosMac. The function should have the following features:

   1. Iterate until the relative error (variable name “relErr” ) falls below a stopping criterion OR exceeds a maximum number of iterations (variable name“maxIter”) for a given value of x.

   2. Include a default value of relErr = 1e-6 if the user does not enter the value (use nargin function).

   3. Include a default value for maxIter = 100 if the user does not enter the value (use nargin function).

   4. Return the estimate of cos(x), the approximate relative error, the number of iterations, and the true relative error (that you can calculate based on the built- in cosine function).

A researcher wants to determine if there is a significant difference between the average fuel mileages for city and highway driving for the same model of cars. Use the EPA data below from a variety of 4-door sedans built in 2015 to determine if there is a difference between the city and highway fuel mileage for the same car models using α = 0.05. Round calculations to the nearest tenths.

what test should you perform for this and why?

calculate the test

QUESTION 3: A pharmaceutical company makes tranquilizers. It is assumed that the distribution for the length of time they last is approximately normal. Researchers in a hospital used the drug on a random sample of nine patients. The effective period of the tranquilizer for each patient (in hours) was as follows: 2.7, 2.8, 3.0, 2.3, 2.3, 2.2, 2.8, 2.1 and 2.4.

a) Find the mean of the sample.

b) Find the standard deviation of the sample.

c) Find the median of the sample.

d) Based on the mean and the standard deviation in the sample, estimate the mean amount of time that the tranquilizer is effective in the whole population by constructing and interpreting a 90% confidence interval. (Assume the required conditions are held.) Here you don’t need to show how the interval is built. Just the interval and its interpretation.

1. Glycogen:

a.)  Is mainly broken down to glucose-1-P by glycogen synthase

b.)  Has branch chains that are attached at the branch points by alpha 1,4

glycosidic linkages

c.)  Built by glycogen phosphorylase when there is high ATP and high glucose-6-

P

d.)  Is an important storage form of glucose in our livers

e.)  Both a and c 

2. What effect will high fructose-2,6-bisphosphate and low ATP have on gluconeogenesis?

a.)  It will shut gluconeogenesis down at the step of triose phosphate isomerase

b.)  It will speed gluconeogenesis up at fructose-1,6-bisphosphate phosphatase

c.)  It will speed up gluconeogenesis by hyperactivating triose phosphate

isomerase

d.)  It will speed up gluconeogenesis by hyperactivating phosphofructokinase

e.)  Both b and d

The intersection (∩) of two sets (s1, s2) is the set of all elements that are in s1 and are also in s2. Write a function (intersect) that takes two lists as input (you can assume they have no duplicate elements), and returns the intersection of those two sets (as a list) without using the in operator or any built-in functions, except for range() and len(). Write some code to test your function, as well.

Note: Do not use the in operator for this assignment. The keyword in used in for loops (e.g. for x in list) is allowed, as that is not the same as using the in operator. The following code, which uses the in operator, would not be permitted, since it makes this question too easy:

if elem in set2:
# do something

Sample Output for Part 1:

>>> intersect([1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25], [1,4,9,16,25]) [1, 9, 25]

a- • Must a contractor be delayed beyond the contractual project duration in order to successfully file a claim for 15 delay damages? • Explain your answer

b- • A contract contains the following clause: • “The owner specifically reserves the right to modify the progress schedule as required by the conditions of the work.” Can a contractor that has been delayed by the owner’s revisions to the order of the work in the schedule successfully file a claim for a time extension? • Explain your answer

c- • What is the role of “as-built” schedules in litigation involving delays?

d- • To minimize the chance of losses, suggest a methodology to follow when a delay, that has the potential 18 of resulting in litigation, occurs on a construction project.

e- • Explain two of the added costs that might be incurred by the contractor as a result of a change issued by the owner.