Conduct a financial analysis of water system operation for the City of Smallville over the next ten years. Use the data below.   If you lack data, make assumptions or ask for it. Analyze O&M, capital costs and cash flows. The water system currently serves 100,000 people and is to be expanded to handle a population influx of 5% per year for the next ten years. Land use is mixed residential and commercial, but no industry. Base your estimates on residential demands and assume that commercial water use adds 15% to the residential use. You expand the system to accommodate growth and simultaneously maintain and renew the existing system during the period. The system is currently 15 years old and has depreciated on a 30-year depreciation cycle at 3.33% per year on a straight-line basis.

Your system expansion will be staged so that half is built now and half in five years. When you also invest in system renewal to overcome depreciation, the investments would be added to the costs of system expansion. System renewal is governed by the rule that current system value must not fall below 50% of replacement value.

You will take a loan for the first part of the construction and issue bonds for the next increment (in five years). You may vary from this if you choose different capital financing vehicles.   Loans are “revolving loans” and come from an infrastructure bank. Annual loan payments begin in one year and continue for ten years. Recommend how to finance the expansion and renewal with funding from plant investment fees, water use fees, sales tax revenues, and property tax revenues. Commercial property has 25% of the assessed valuation of the residential property.

1. Set up a spreadsheet and forecast cash flows for the next fifteen years.

2. Schedule for capital improvements (the capital improvement program)

Reusable Passwords The most common authentication credential is the reusable password, which is a string of characters that a user types to gain access to the resources associated with a certain username (account) on a computer. These are called reusable passwords because the user types the password each time he or she needs access to the resource. Unfortunately, the reusable password is the weakest form of authentication, and it is appropriate only for the least sensitive assets.Ease of Use and Low Cost: The popularity of password authentication is hardly surprising. For users, passwords are familiar and relatively easy to use. For corporate IT departments, passwords add no cost because operating systems and many applications have built-in password authentication.Dictionary Attacks The main problem with passwords is that most users pick very weak passwords. To break into a host by guessing and trying passwords, hackers often use password dictionaries. These are lists of passwords likely to succeed. Running through a password dictionary to see if a password is accepted for a username is called a dictionary attack. Password dictionaries typically have three types of entries: a list of common password, the words in standard dictionaries, and hybrid versions of words such as capitalizing the first letter and adding a digit at the end. If a password is in one of these dictionaries, the attacker may have to try a fewthousand passwords, but this will only take seconds. No password that is in a cracker dictionary is adequately strong, no matter how long it is. Fortunately, good passwords cannot be broken by dictionary attacks. Good passwords have two characteristics. First, they are complex. It is essential to have a mix of upper and lower case letters that does not have a regular pattern such as alternating uppercase letters lowercase letters. It is also good—and some would say necessary—to include non-letter keyboard characters such as the digits (0 through 9) and other special characters (&, #./,?, etc.). If a password is complex, it can only be cracked by a brute-force attack, in which the cracker first tries all combinations of one character passwords, all combinations of two-character passwords, andso forth, until the attacker finds one that works. Complexity is not enough, however. Complex passwords must also be long. For short complex passwords, brute force attacks will still succeed. Beyond about 10 or 12 characters, however, there are too many combinations to try in a reasonable period of time.Overall, while long complex passwords can defeat determined attacks, most users select passwords that can be cracked with dictionary attacks. Reusable passwords are no longer appropriate in an era when password cracking programs can reveal most passwords in seconds or minutes. Passwords are only useful for non-sensitive assets.

1.Discuss and explain the types of passwords are susceptible to dictionary attacks?[5marks]

2.Can a password that can be broken by a dictionary attack be adequately strong if it is very long?Justify your answer. [5marks]

3.Explain the types of passwords can be broken only by brute-force attacks.[5marks]

4.What are the characteristics of passwords that are safe from even brute-force attacks?[5marks]

5.Discuss why is it undesirable to use reusable passwords for anything but the least sensitive assets

Mary Milken is the CFO of the Rbeck Company in Miami, Florida. The company is a closely held custom yacht builder with about 200 technical workers (engineers, marine architects, mechanics, boat workers, and so on), and 12 employees in its main office staff. Her primary job is to prepare the financial statements with the assistance of two full-time accountants. She normally follows generally accepted accounting principles, but she sometimes ignores them when she thinks they do not lead to what she considers best practices for the small number of her company’s shareholders.

In the previous decade, the company was owned by three sisters, each of whom served on the board of directors. One of the three, Vanessa Rbeck, served as the CEO during that period. The other two have always deferred to her with respect to her operational management decisions.

Only a month ago, however, Vanessa’s sisters were killed when their private plane crashed enroute to the Bahamas, which they frequently visited on weekends for relaxation. Upon their death, all of their shares in the Rbeck company transferred to a single trustee in one of the large South Florida banks. Each sister had held her shares in revo- cable living trusts with the same bank named as successor trustee.

As soon as the funerals were over, Mary and Vanessa met with the trustee, Annie Crusher. The meeting did not go well. Annie had grown up working in a family-owned retail boat business, and she thought her knowledge of the industry transferred to the yacht-building business. She began asking Vanessa a rapid succession of unfriendly questions in an adversarial tone of voice. Her questions strongly implied that a yacht- building business did not belong in South Florida but offshore where labor is cheaper. After the meeting, both Mary and Vanessa became afraid that Annie would do some- thing crazy like fire them both or liquidate the business.

For the previous five years, Rbeck’s stock had sold for a steady $12 per share, with $8 per share in dividends. Vanessa received a good salary, but she depended on the dividends to send her children to private schools and to pay the large mortgage on her waterfront home in South Beach. She immediately realized that she was now at Annie’s mercy; she could easily cut off Vanessa’s dividends, lower her salary, or put her out of work.

To make things worse, Mary was almost finished with the most recent annual report, and it appeared that earnings were down for the first time ever. Her preliminary calculations showed earnings per share somewhere near $8.

The problem with earnings had been caused by large bad debts from three clients who had been arrested for drug trafficking. Rbeck had entirely financed luxury yachts for the three clients because of their excellent credit history and prominence in the business community. However, the federal government seized all of the clients’ assets, leaving nothing for Rbeck but the three half-built yachts.

After thinking things over, Vanessa asked Mary to find a way to avoid having to report lower earnings because of her concern as to how Annie might respond to the decline in earnings. Mary considered various options:

•             Increase the estimated percentage of completion on all yachts in work-in-process inventory by 15 percent. This would wipe out most of the loss. Work in process estimates have always been very conservative anyway.

•             Recognize revenue on the three yachts in default. It would be very difficult to sell them at a good price, but she could always argue that they could be sold if she could keep a straight face. The best strategy would be to find new buyers for them, but that could take a couple of years.

•             Switch to mark-to-market accounting for some of the yachts in progress so the company could recognize all of the profit when contracts with other clients are signed.

a. Is any option that Mary is considering acceptable under generally accepted accounting principles? Why or why not?

b. DoanyoftheoptionsbeingconsideredbyMaryconstitutefinancialstatementsfraud?

c. How would you handle the entire situation if you were in Mary’s shoes?

1. Demand: P=120-Q    Total Cost: TC=Q²

Marginal Revenue:  MR=120-2Q           Marginal Cost: MC=2Q

What is the amount of profit for this monopolist?

2. Demand: P=120-Q                                 Total Cost: TC=Q²

Marginal Revenue:  MR=120-2Q           Marginal Cost: MC=2Q

For this monopolist, the profit-maximizing price is ________ and the profit-maximizing quantity is _________.

3. Demand: P=120-Q                                 Total Cost: TC=Q²

Marginal Revenue:  MR=120-2Q           Marginal Cost: MC=2Q

Compared to perfect competition where P=MC, what is the amount of deadweight loss caused by this monopolist _________.

Q1 (Investor, capital gains)

Karl Kruger is a 38 year-old single Australian resident taxpayer. During the 2017/18 tax year, Karl received and retained the following records:

Other Information:

• Karl’s rental property was built in 1999 when total construction costs of $200,000 were incurred. Karl has owned and leased the property since 2009.
• Karl made mortgage repayments on his rental property of $20,000, of which $12,100 was principal.
• Karl also sold the following assets during the year:

required :Prepare a statement calculating Karl’s tax payable/refundable.

(Tax losses, partner in partnership)

The following data relates to Stephanie Garner, a resident taxpayer. Stephanie derives income from a public relations business and is also a partner in a marketing business.

General business deductions are separate from personal superannuation, gifts, partnership losses and losses of previous years.

Please assume that the necessary tests have been satisfied such that any partnership losses from Stephanie's share in the marketing business may be deducted from other income as appropriate.

Required: For 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 , determine Stephanie’s Taxable Income and any losses that may be carried forward

Q1 (Investor, capital gains)

Karl Kruger is a 38 year-old single Australian resident taxpayer. During the 2017/18 tax year, Karl received and retained the following records:

Other Information:

• Karl’s rental property was built in 1999 when total construction costs of $200,000 were incurred. Karl has owned and leased the property since 2009.
• Karl made mortgage repayments on his rental property of $20,000, of which $12,100 was principal.
• Karl also sold the following assets during the year:

required :Prepare a statement calculating Karl’s tax payable/refundable.

(Tax losses, partner in partnership)

The following data relates to Stephanie Garner, a resident taxpayer. Stephanie derives income from a public relations business and is also a partner in a marketing business.

General business deductions are separate from personal superannuation, gifts, partnership losses and losses of previous years.

Please assume that the necessary tests have been satisfied such that any partnership losses from Stephanie's share in the marketing business may be deducted from other income as appropriate.

Required: For 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 , determine Stephanie’s Taxable Income and any losses that may be carried forward

Jazz Mobile phone is a famous multinational brand producing smart phones. The main aim for
Jazz is to satisfy its users with user friendly, innovative and elegant devices that simplify the
problems of the customers and enable them to enjoy the product. Jazz mobile have different series
with amazing features of large display size, amazing battery time, high definition camera quality
and large internal storages. Jazz have a comprehensive portfolio of hardware, software and services
that enable the digital transformation of networks to address capacity needs, reduce complexity
and leverage network intelligence to create and deliver new services. Operational excellence
remains a source of competitive advantage for Jazz and this becomes the foundation of their
strategy.
According to their vision, Jazz Research is actively conducting research and development (R&D) to
identify new future growth areas and secure advanced technologies for its products to create new value
and improve people’s lives. Jazz has a global network of R&D centers, each with individual
technology and competence specialties. Jazz research promises to continue working hard to become
a global top research institute that creates new values for the future through ceaseless innovation and
intelligence.
Recently Jazz has launched a new phone Book 8. It has the biggest screen and battery, the fastest
processor and the largest storage. It’s a phone designed and built for the power user who won’t
settle for anything less. The Book 8 gives the most advanced features than any other series. After
few days of launching the phone, the customers had a complaint that there is some problem with
the phone. Jazz management ordered the inquiry and identify the issues arising out of the battery
design and manufacturing process. Jazz had to recall about 1.5 million phones after complaints of
manufacturing issues.
Research and development along with the management is concerned about the incident and their
goodwill across the world. R &D is now working to find out the reasons for the failure of their
new Book 8. They wanted to ensure that this problem should not exist for the new model coming
in the future.
a. Sometimes a minor negligence can cost the company in terms of their repute, money, time and
effort. Based on company’s previous experience of Book 8, what steps are required to be followed
by Jazz for comprehensive research for their upcoming model. What suggestions would you
recommend to Jazz R&D to make their research successful?
b. Write the analysis report for the causes of failure of Book 8. What were the practices not
followed before launch of Book 8?