Thursday, October 31, 2019

TACC203 Financial Accounting and Reporting Assignment

TACC203 Financial Accounting and Reporting - Assignment Example When depreciation is computed using this method, the depreciation charge throughout the useful life of the assets is equal. In this case, Long Board Limited purchased printing machine for $120,000 which had a useful life of 4 years. The deprecation charge is $30,000 (120,000/4) each year until the machine is sold. The accumulated depreciation is $60,000 in 2 years of usage. At the end of year 2 the company sold the machine for $50,000 cash which resulted in $10,000 loss on this sale since the book value of the machine at that time was $60,000(120,000-60000) as computed above. This method of depreciation is suitable when the economic benefits derived from the assets are equal in every year throughout useful life. Using this method depreciation is charged on the opening balance of the assets by applying the same percentage every year. The depreciation in the early years is greater than the following years because the value of the assets diminishes over the period of time. This method of depreciation is suitable if the benefit derived from the assets are greater in early years than subsequent years. Depreciation is calculated using this method when the economic benefits derived from assets are greater in the early years of its usage. In this case the machine is expected to be used in four years so we need to sum the digits from 1 to 4. In this method the depreciation is charged using the hours of production. It means when the production is higher the depreciation charge is also higher and vice versa. There is no fixed pattern of charging depreciation. It may be possible that the depreciation in the early years is lesser than the depreciation in the following years. Depreciation can be computed as below; Research is defined by IAS 38 paragraph 8, as the original and planned investigation which the entity undertakes in search of new scientific or technical knowledge and understanding. According to IAS 38 paragraph 54-55, all research

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Has Apple done enough to help Foxconn workers Essay

Has Apple done enough to help Foxconn workers - Essay Example 12 on Apple products manufactured in China; there has been mounting criticism of labor malpractices in the manufacturing processes, leading to conduction of investigations by international labor groups into companies which contract to make Apple products. The makers of iPad have specifically largely been criticized for a number of labor related problems, some of which are quite serious in nature (Andrzejcyzk, 2015). Thus the workers who toil night and day at manufacturing plants in China to ensure that Apple customers are satisfied, usually do so under harsh working conditions including work hours beyond the 8 hour day, forced overtime as well as other health and safety risks(Chang, â€Å"Audit Faults Apple Supplier’s Factories in China†).Foxconn Taiwanese company is Apple’s key supplier for the iPad and employs over I million people there. In March 2012,Fair Labor Association(FLA) conducted research(almost 3,000 hours at 3 of the Foxconn factories) and found the following; that the average work week was 60 hours with 36 hours overtime for the month at all the Foxconn manufacturing sites, some employees did not have a single day off for the entire work week, with several employees logging in a 7 day work week before they got a day off, over 60% of employees surveyed claimed that their pay did not cover enough to â€Å"meet basic needs† .A group called Students and Sc holars also compiled a report in May 2012 against Corporate Misbehavior(SACOM).The report derived its content from interviews conducted with factory workers and supervisors in Shenzhen and Zhengzhou, China. The SACOM report cited that while the company increased wages, it also increased production quotas by some 10%.Moreover the living conditions were described as being â€Å"cramped and unpleasant† with at times as many as 30 workers sharing space in an apartment with just 3 bedrooms (Musil, â€Å"Foxconn Working Conditions Slammed by Workers Rights Groups†).Te employees were also strictly warned not

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Image Analysis of Cleopatra

Image Analysis of Cleopatra This paper analyses non-literary sources in terms of what information they can provide about Cleopatra, including visual images, analyses of numismatic evidence, and analysis of inscriptions. The paper relies on six main sources: Austin’s The Hellenistic world: from Alexander to the Roman conquest. A selection of ancient sources in translation; Goudchaux’s 2001 essay entitled Cleopatra’s subtle religious strategy, found in Higgs’ and Walker’s Cleopatra of Egypt: from history to myth, which is also a source; Holbl’s History of the Ptolemaic Empire; Howgego’s Ancient history from coins (approaching the ancient world) and Pollitt’s Art in the Hellenistic Age. From these sources, images of Cleopatra, from sculptures, pottery, mosaics and coinage, amongst others, are discussed, and their relevance to Cleopatra’s image are analysed and discussed. As Howgego (1995) argues, coins have far more than monetary value, they can be important in defining power and power structures, in terms of politics and in terms of imperialism, recognising, however, that is difficult to describe ancient political and power structures in modern terms, as they were so very different from the structures that are around at the moment, and, as such, describing such structures in terms of modern definitions can often itself lead to misunderstandings and flaws in research undertaken. The vast majority of coins that are known, for example, show Cleopatra as a Hellenic ruler, although she was, of course, the last Queen of Egypt. This attests to the fact that Cleopatra was a great manipulator, and that, indeed, she manipulated her image whilst alive in order to retain power, in politics, and over people. Portraying herself in Hellenistic images allowed Cleopatra to show to her people that she was not only ruler of Egypt, but, through her control of Alexandri a, ruler of all of the Hellenistic world. As Goudchaux points out in his 2001 essay Cleopatra’s subtle religious strategy, Cleopatra was a Ptolemy who spoke Egyptian. She had claim to Egyptian territory, through her family, and also to Hellenistic lands, as contemporary coinage suggest. Cleopatra therefore had political and territorial control of many lands, and also moved freely between many cultures, accepted as she was in Egypt and across the Hellenistic world. Goudchaux (2001) argues that she was an innovative ruler, and most definitely a product of her family’s power and history. In this essay, Goudchaux (2001) makes the point strongly that Cleopatra wanted to understand Egyptian concepts of religion as she realised that religion was one of the bonds which united the Egyptian people and which created a bond with the land, in terms of people having a focal point in the temples, all of which were dedicated to Egyptian gods. As such, Cleopatra was aware that, in some respects, by controlling religion, she would control the Egyptian people. Priests, Cleopatra realised, were the highest peak of Egyptian society, with priests commanding great respect and holding society together. Cleopatra realised this, realised the power of religion in Egyptian society, and it is known that Cleopatra herself held great respect for Egyptian priests and did everything she could to understand Egyptian religion, in terms of keeping priests close to her and ensuring that they followed her rule. This she then used to form bonds with Roman generals, for example, Caesar, and, indeed, Cle opatra built a temple in Rome when she visited Caesar. Romans found Egyptian style to be in vogue at some point in their history, but as Cleopatra would later realise, this was a fleeting fashion, which soon fell out of favour with the majority of Roman rulers. Cleopatra, therefore, as Goudchaux (2001) makes clear, was a shrwed politician, who knew what needed to be done, and when, in order to keep abreast of shifting power struggles, and to keep hold of her territory, which many people wanted (including the Roman generals). Cleopatra’s highly political character, in which she used her connections with many cultures (Ptolomeic to Egyptian to Roman to Hellenistic) to achieve her political aims, according to the needs of her kingdom as she saw them, itself led to many images of Cleopatra being produced. We have images of Cleopatra looking Egyptian, and images of Cleopatra looking Egyptian but with some Greek features, for example. All of these images are useful in that they allow pieces to be dated accurately, according to Cleopatra’s known movements and interactions with other rulers. As Goudchaux (2001) argues, as we have seen, Cleopatra was well aware of the power of imagery, and she used imagery as a political tool, in terms of ensuring her self-presentation was faultless in order to achieve her political aims. As Walker (2001) argues, in his essay in Higgs and Walker (2001), Cleopatra was a master manipulator, allowing images of herself to be created as the need arose, such that we have images of Cleopatra that are Egyptian in origin, such as Egyptian reliefs, which show Cleopatra as regal, and all powerful. We also have Roman images of Cleopatra, which, whilst on the face of it seem not to be flattering, as they show Cleopatra as womanly and in almost pornographic positions, but, understood in the context of Roman society at that time, are actually a compliment to her womanliness, and a way of presenting Cleopatra to the Romans in a way which would be appreciated by this society. Other images of Cleopatra, from coins, for example, show Cleopatra with very str ong features, not at all beautiful as is normally supposed, and are thought to be a reflection, a re-take on the portraiture of her father, Ptolemy XII, as a way of recalling her lineage to her people. Imagery of Cleopatra is thus both complex and complicated, and in order to understand Cleopatrian imagery, one needs to read this imagery in the context of the time at which it was made, and what political happenings were occurring at the time of the image being made. Higgs and Walker (2001) analysed nearly four hundred artefacts relating to Cleopatra and her life, in an attempt to understand Cleopatra’s iconography. The book, which is essentially a catalogue of the British Museum exhibition of the same name, includes many new images of Cleopatra, including some papyrus bearing her signature which was recently discovered, has caused as much sensation as the exhibition, with many ancient scholars arguing against the book, that it does not contain sufficiently in-depth research, and that the research it does contain is not high quality. This caveat aside, the edited book contains many interesting essays, amongst them Higgs’ Searching for Cleopatra’s image: classical portraits in stone which makes it clear that it is, actually, extremely difficult to identify Cleopatra in ancient sculptures, in particular, because, as we have seen, Cleopatra was a master manipulator of her image, and as such, there are many different kinds of images of Cleopatra, and then, on top of this, because of the artistic licence that many artists took when defining Cleopatra in their work. Higgs picks out some of what he considers to be essential features of any image of Cleopatra, including snakes, hairstyles and heads which are separated from the body (representing, bizarrely, power), and shows that these features can be used, generally, to identify images of Cleopatra. Goudchaux’s essay in this volume, as we have seen, is extremely useful in coming to some understanding of the imagery of Cleopatra, in terms of her religious beliefs and her use of religion to gain, and maintain, political power, but it is also useful in showing how subjective analyses of images of Cleopatra can be, and how maleable these images are, in that one person can look at an image of Cleopatra, on a coin for example, and find it beautiful, whereas another person can look at that very same image and find not beauty, but plain regalness, for example. As Goudchaux states, the fact that many of Cleopatra’s coins were made not from gold but from silver alloys, means that some of these coins have not survived well and that, because of this decay, they can provide distorted images of Cleopatra, simply by virtue of their damaged condition[1]. This degradation of imagery also needs to be taken in to account, Goudchaux argues, when assessing the power and purpose of imag es of Cleopatra, and the information that can be gained from such images and imagery. This analysis of the various images of Cleopatra and the way in which Cleopatra manipulated her image, and allowed her image to be manipulated, as a way of gaining and maintaining power over her people and over foreign rulers shows, ultimately, the necessity for Cleopatra to act in the way she did, in terms of ruling over a land that many people wanted to gain control of, from a city that the Romans wished to rule. Her manipulation of her image, on coins she minted, for example, was, as Howgego (1995) argues, a direct way for Cleopatra to portray the image of herself that she wanted to portray to her people, in order to gain the effect she wanted to gain from her people i.e., submission and support. As Higgs and Walker (2001) show, through their choice, and cataloguing, of nearly 400 artefacts relating to Cleopatra, Cleopatra was not just a master manipulator of her own image: she used art and imagery as a political tool, in an attempt to gain influence abroad. Higgs and Walker (2001) argue, for example, that the Roman Palestrina Nile Mosaic, which, it is argued by Goudchaux (2001), is a dedication from Cleopatra to the Roman goddess Fortuna, was gifted to the Romans as a way of gaining an in-road in to Roman society. Such gifts, replete with political imagery and significance were a feature of ancient society, a way of gaining a presence in a foreign nation, for example, and so Cleopatra’s usage of such imagery can, perhaps, be better understood in this context: that it was a routine way of attaining one’s wishes, in political terms. As such, perhaps, Cleopatra, through manipulating her own image, was doing nothing more than repeating a routine occurrence. As Pelling (2001) argues in his essay entitled Anything truth can do, we can do better: the Cleopatra legend, in Walker and Higgs (2001), that exaggerated portrayals of Cleopatra were common within Egypt and across the ancient world, and as Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra had a great role to play in this exaggeration; contemporary and more modern accounts of Cleopatra as the ‘beauty’ and even, for example, Cleopatra’s adoption by the black rights movement in the United States is no more than a continuation of Cleopatra’s own manipulation, that the appropriation of Cleopatra’s image, and the continuation of the ‘myth’ of Cleopatra’s beauty and power is no more than a way in which to borrow power from her image and to lend power to contemporary arguments and causes. This analysis of the various images of Cleopatra and the way in which Cleopatra manipulated her image, and allowed her image to be manipulated, as a way of gaining and maintaining power over her people and over foreign rulers has shown, ultimately, as we have seen, the necessity for Cleopatra to act in the way she did, in terms of ruling over a land that many people wanted to gain control of, from a city that the Romans wished to rule. The debates over Cleopatra’s supposed beauty is rather peripheral to the life that Cleopatra led, as ruler of Egypt and as over-seer of the Hellenistic world. As this study has shown, images of Cleopatra were created not with the task of conveying her beauty[2], but with conveying her power and her abilities to rule, and her willingness to continue to rule. References Austin, M.M, 2006. The Hellenistic world: from Alexander to the Roman conquest. A selection of ancient sources in translation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goudchaux, G.W., 2001. Cleopatra’s subtle religious strategy. In S.Walker and P.Higgs (eds.), Cleopatra of Egypt: from history to myth. Higgs, P. and Walker, S. (eds.), 2001. Cleopatra of Egypt: from history to myth. Princeton University Press. Holbl, G., 2001. History of the Ptolemaic Empire. London: Routledge. Howgego, C., 1995. Ancient history from coins (approaching the ancient world). London: Routledge. Pollitt, J., 1986. Art in the Hellenistic Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1 Footnotes [1] Coins recently discovered in a bank vault in Newcastle, however, which are in mint condition show Cleopatra in a very bad light, not at all beautiful, with hooked nose and chin. See The Guardian 14th February 2007 article entitled Antony and Cleopatra: coin find changes the face of history by Martin Wainwright. [2] Indeed, as argued by Hamer (2001) in her essay in Higgs and Walker (2001) entitled The myth of Cleopatra since the Renaissance, this obsession with Cleopatra’s beauty is a modern obsession, that developed from the Renaissance onwards, and was not a defining feature of imagery of Cleopatra that was produced during her time.

Friday, October 25, 2019

The Way We Really Are Essay -- Essays Papers

The Way We Really Are The author of this article portrays how the standard of the â€Å"traditional family† has changed over the past century. The article emphasizes on how marriages are becoming extinct and families are breaking away from the old fashioned way of raising children. For example, having both a father and a mother in the home full-time use to be the definition of â€Å" the traditional family†. The author seems to believe that the majority of society today is becoming accustomed to single parent homes and women being the major breadwinners in the home, thus making this the new â€Å"traditional family† lifestyle. As I was reading the statistics in this article I was very critical in believing the data that was given by the author. There were statistics given about the increase in unwed motherhood, divorce rates falling and rising, how much divorce has increased since the 1950’s and how many people are staying unwed in the later 1900’s. The author gave no indication of where or how she gathered her statistics. I do believe that the divorce rate in America is at an all time high for the start of the new millennium. I believe that Americans are forced to re-evaluate their opinion on what the traditional family is made up of. Children are forced to live with one parent, not having the traditional dream of both a mother and a Father, which is the image of what a real family is portrayed to be in the generation I was brought up with. The traditional ...

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Australian Drama

Australian playwrights use a variety of styles, techniques and conventions to present images on the stage that provoke and challenge their audiences. Discuss with reference to your study and experience of the plays you have studied. The Australian playwrights studied this year have used a variety of styles, techniques and conventions, presenting Images which provoke and challenge audiences. The Removals by David Williamson and No Sugar by Jack Davis, despite the different contexts, are concerned with power and status and the conflict which is created by intonating cultural and social values.While Davis' No Sugar is set in Western Australia in the ass's and focuses on the discrimination and racism experienced by Aboriginals, The Removals deals with Police corruption in the us. Despite these different contexts, both plays manipulate a range of style, techniques and conventions to create images which effectively challenge and provoke their audiences. Both plays combine a range of styles , techniques and conventions to create Images which provoke and challenge the audience but the most significant dramatic quinine Is the deliberate and careful use of contrast In the spoken language.The dialogue in No Sugar provokes the audience right from the first scene with the starting mixture of â€Å"lingo's', â€Å"Garrulously Nosegays corroboree to a wet]la's brass band! † Here the audience is presented with an incongruous image of Aboriginals trying to do the impossible – adjust and assimilate harmoniously to the traditional music of the controlling culture. From the humorous slang of Jimmy, â€Å"Oh Jesus, me bloody leg† to the formal, platitude – style speech of Manville, â€Å"in this small ornery of the Empire† (4. ) the audience is challenged by the evident differentiation of status, education and privilege. White language is formal and sanitized. Black language Is comic, creative, angry and despairing, the humor challenging the audie nce to Identify sympathetically with the gutsy and resilient characters. Contrasting social and cultural values are heard throughout the play, the playwright deliberately highlighting the black conditions with white.Similarly, the open stage settings and parallel scenes juxtaposed throughout, serve to emphasis the contrasting situations. For example, (focus on three important scenes as evidence – looking at how the different elements create images for the audience) In a completely different context, David Williamson The Removals highlights the characters' weaknesses and vulnerabilities which reveal themselves as the tension escalates and the increasing corruption materialists, through the contrasting and unmistakable individual voices.Simmons Interrogates rather than communicating, using an apparently polite but deliberately terse and crude style, â€Å"l hope you're not a young smart Ares Ross. Ross in contrast parrots clichà ©Ã‚ ©s, â€Å"got to be trained for all eventu alities,† and the Removal's repetitive, â€Å"Vie got 5000 dollars worth of machinery ticking over in the driveway', provoking the audience to reconsider the about the reliability and integrity of the Police force, the willingness of a tradesman to become involved in a crisis are challenged.Events are presented rapidly and intensified through the form of the two single acts, the police station and the flat; the playwright building on a essentially realistic style with elements of Greek Theatre, the lenience taking place offstage, thus allowing the audience to rely on their imaginations to create their own images of power and corruption out of control, challenging them to reconsider their ideas and assumption .Both plays essentially rely on Realism to engage, provoke and challenge the audience while creating convincing and effective images. Although No Sugar has conventionally been staged using a Promenade form, experiments and discussions in class. (identify a staging ideas à ¢â‚¬â€œ perhaps transformational acting/ projection/ voice over – think about how well this would work as a radio play) The Removals traditionally is performed on a stage which â€Å"breaks the fourth wall† in naturalistic style, relying on realistic and recognizable Australian stereotypes.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Differences Between University And School

In recent years, although tertiary education is certainly popular among Hong Kong students. It is unlikely that all students can easily catch the ways of studying at starting university. Therefore, we need to know actually what great differences between studying at university and school in order to adjust our ways of studying more effective to achieve the tertiary education. In this essay, I will try to examine their differences in terms of the characteristic of teachers and students, students time management and motivation as well as the modes of assessment Firstly, the characteristic of teachers and students in school and at university has great differences. The school teachers dismantle to translate the textbooks word-by-word from limited information-based, and whether the students understand the lessons or not, they can passively copy down the information and refers to their notes later at home and memorizes them. However, the university students are no longer allowed to sit quietly and negatively throughout the class. They are being demanded to discuss academic matters or cooperate with other classmate to perform projects. They are require to find sources, gathering information and put them into order. As Marshall and Rowland (1993, 34) pointed out, the ability to think critically is a generic skill that are expected to acquire in the undergraduate education and transfer to daily life, future or current work. Therefore, the tutors at university who offer not only textbook instructions but also helps students to think critically and independently by encouragement. Besides, students can choose and adjust their own learning style independently from freely choices of materials provided at university. Another important difference in students time management that is mainly affected by the learners motivation in school and at university. The motivation of school students is comes from parents and teachers, who reward or punish students for keeping up their studies. Students are unexpected to plan or do anything besides follow the timetable and study schedule from teachers. When a student moves on to undertake university study at undergraduate level, there is demanded to be more self-motivated and independent learning. Such as plan a learning programme that takes into consideration time available for study. As Marshall and Rowland (1993, 41) shown that, if students are studying at a distance in tertiary education are needed to be particularly careful in setting priorities and balance a certain time between work and study, family and social life. It is important to manage time efficiently to achieve satisfactory results. The final difference point in assessment procedures. In school, students are judged largely on the grades they achieve in examinations for gaining admission to higher education. On the other hand, university students are judged mainly on their continuously assessed course work, not only by their performances in examinations. In this essay, I have attempted to identify and explain how great differences between studying in school and at university in terms of teaching and learning style, students motivation and time management, and the modes of assessment. I found that when students moves on to undertake the tertiary education. This means, they has reached adulthood and becomes an independent and self-motivated learners. They should accommodate the suitable learning style and good time management for themselves to achieve the satisfactory results. Marshall and Rowland (1993, 41) described that, each discipline or body of knowledge is a culture in its own right with its own discourse V its own language and vocabulary and its own methodologies for choosing, analysing, critiquing, interpreting, presenting and using this knowledge. Thus, when start tertiary study enter not only the overall culture of the institution but the culture of the discipline in which are intend to study. Independence and the exercise of initiative are both essential qualities in a good university student.