Themes Depicted in the Play Summer of the Seventeenth...

Summer Of The Seventeenth Doll is a timeless play as it can be transposed to be as relevant today as when it was written. The play is definitely a tragi-comedy but more than the ideas raised in the statement the play is about change and the inability for some to deal with it, the battle between dream and reality and loyalty and mateship. It also serves as a social document of Australia in the 1950s. Lawler uses symbols, the actions of the characters, the structure of the play and mise-en-scene to effectively portray his feelings to the audience. The main theme expressed in the play is change and the characters inability to cope with this. Like many working-class people from this time the characters in the play are fairly uneducated†¦show more content†¦She embraced the change that was happening and Olive mistakes this for treachery. The downfall of the characters (especially Olive) really is rather tragic. In the final scene Roo accepts that change - as much as he does not want it - must happen, he asks Olive to marry him. Her dreams are now shattered and she sees Roo as the one who has taken them from her; I want what I had before. You give it back to me - give me back what youve taken. (Pg. 93) Change is inevitable and a person has to learn that the same pattern of living cannot serve them feasibly forever. Summer Of The Seventeenth Doll a battle between dreams and reality. The characters are living in a dream world where everything - for them - is perfect. This, of course, is until Pearl comes along and sees through the thin faà §ade of their existence; Glamorous nights! (Pg. 57) she scoffs at their seemingly pathetic excuse for a New Years Eve party. She is the classic realist in the play, as is Emma, and brings reality to the characters lives. These two also create an exceptional contrast and help to magnify Olives illusions. Olives dream of living a carefree life forever is shattered when she is brought down to a reality which she refuses to accept; the lay-off season is not what it once was, and Roo is no longer the Aussie hero she thought him to be. His dream is to always be top dog in the caneShow MoreRelatedThe Multiculturalism of London: Perceptions of Five Authors4563 Words   |  18 Pagesfive authors, i.e. Zadie Smith, Charles dickens, Daniel Defoe, John Gay and Ben Jonson and their separate views about London. Table of Contents Introduction 3 Discussion 4 The Ben Jonsons Bartholomew Fair (Fayre) 4 The Social Unifier Depicted by the Fair 5 The Fair and the Social Identity 6 The Bartholomew Fair of Jonson and Social Identity 6 The John Gays The Beggars Opera 8 The Slums of London 9 The Plots of Opera 10 The Daniel Defoes Journal of a Plague Year 10

Financial Statement Analysis of Amazon.Com Free Essays

Financial Statement Analysis of Amazon. com, Inc. Introduction The purpose of this essay is to perform financial statement analysis on Amazon. We will write a custom essay sample on Financial Statement Analysis of Amazon.Com or any similar topic only for you Order Now com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN ). We start with an introduction of Amazon and its industry. We then evaluate the company’s financial position, liquidity, operating capability and financial flexibility using different ratios. To evaluate the financial performance of Amazon. com, Inc we disclose recurring NICO and do full ROE disaggregation. Amazon. com’s stock price increased from $44. 29 per share at the end of fiscal year 2004 to $134. 2 per share at the end of fiscal year 2009. Earnings per share increased from $0. 63 to $2. 06. The stock closed at $118. 87 on 02/01/2010. Recommendation Amazon. com is a fast growing E-Commerce company. Although facing the recent U. S. and global economic down turn and intense competitions from various industries, its sales increased 28% in 2009, diluted earnings per share increased 31%. Based on our analysis, we project the company to continue maintain the high growth rate. We project the two year target price range of Amazon’s stock to be $193 to $209. The stock is currently undervalued. Consequently, our recommendation of Amazon. com is BUY. Industry Analysis Amazon. com, Inc. is an American-based multinational electronic commerce company. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Amazon was founded in 1994. As one of the largest online retailers in the world, Amazon claims to offer â€Å"Earth’s Biggest Selection†. In addition to online retailing, Amazon also offers programs that enables seller to sell their products on Amazon. com and to fulfill orders through Amazon. It earns fixed fees and revenue share fees etc. hough those transactions. Amazon turned its first profit in the fourth quarter of 2001 and maintained high growth rate since then. We believe that the below are the key factors important to the future success of Amazon. com: * Successful in efforts to expand into international market segments – Amazon needs to further expand internationally to maintain its sustainable growth. * Successful in optimizin g fulfillment process and operating its fulfillment centers – Amazon needs to continue to expand and optimize the operation of its fulfillment centers. Successful in finding new revenue streams – Amazon needs to seek new ways to diversify revenue generation and drive its overall growth. * Manage growth effectively – Amazon’s global expansion increases the complexity of the business. Financial position, liquidity, operating capability and financial flexibility Financing structure of Amazon. com Table 1 summarizes how Amazon. com was financed as of each of the last 6 fiscal year ends. As of December 31:(in millions) | | | | | | | 2009| 2008| 2007| 2006| 2005| 2004| Operating liabilities| $ 8,447 | $ 5,233 | $4,006 | $ 2,685 | $1,929 | $ 1,620 | Financing liabilities| 109 | 409 | 1,282 | 1,247 | 1,521 | 1,855 | Equity| 5,257 | 2,672 | 1,197 | 431 | 246 | (227)| Total Assets| $13,813 | $ 8,314 | $6,485 | $ 4,363 | $3,696 | $ 3,248 | | | | Table 1| | | | Amazon’s fixed assets additions steadily increased between fiscal year 2004 and 2009. Its possession of marketable securities increased each year other than 2007, which was due to the anticipation of an acquisition in 2008. At the same time, Amazon. om has been aggressively paying off its long term debt. Its debt continues to decrease between 2004 and 2009. The debt to total assets ratio dropped from 57% in 2004 to only 1% in 2009. Between 2006 and 2008, Amazon repurchased total 17 million shares of common stocks. Overall, Amazon. com shows good financing structure and operating capability over the past five years. Buy decreasing its debt level, Amazon’s management team shows well ou t looking of the company. Liquidity Three liquidity ratios of Amazon in the past 5 years are presented in table 2. The liquidity ratios of Amazon’s competitor, Ebay, are also presented for 2008 and 2009. The three liquidity ratios show Amazon has very good liquidity, which means it could easily satisfy current liabilities with current assets. Comparing to Amazon, Ebay is even more liquid as it could satisfy its short term liabilities purely by cash and cash equivalents. | | Amazon. com| |   | eBay| | | 2009| 2008| 2007| 2006| 2005| 2004| 2009| 2008| Current Ratio (to one)| 1. 33| 1. 30| 1. 39| 1. 33| 1. 52| 1. 57| 2. 32| 1. 70| Quick Ratio (to one)| 1. 04| 1. 00| 1. 07| 0. 99| 1. 22| 1. 27| 2. 32| 1. 70| Cash Ratio (Acid Ratio) (to one)| 0. 86| 0. 79| 0. 84| 0. 80| 1. 04| 1. 10| 1. 10| 0. 86| | | Table 2| | | | | | Financial Flexibility Financial flexibility (Solvency and leverage) is a company’s ability to adapt to unforeseen events and opportunities. Leverage means using debt (or other third party funds) to increase earnings for the owners. Table 3 presents some financial flexibility and leverage ratios of Amazon. com from 2005 to 2009 and for Ebay from 2008 to 2009. Amazon. com is a fast growing company and in the fiscal year ended 2004, they had a negative total equity, which could skew the ratios. Therefore, we did not present the ratios in 2004. From table 3 we can see that at the end of fiscal year 2009, both Amazon. om and eBay have high financial flexibility due to low or even zero long-term debt. Their usages of leverages are both low. Although a company should try to use leverage to increase earnings for the owner, in the current economical environment, have low or zero long-term debt is actually an advantage, which means they don’t need to rely on creditors to maintain their high growth rate. Overall, Amazon. com has good operating capability, high liquidity and high financial flexibility. One thing to note is that in the current economy environment, while a lot of companies are seeking for credit yet they could not find it, Amazon. om is using cash to paying off its debt. This shows that the company’s operation is healthy and the management team is confident about the future growth of the company. | | Amazon. com|   | | eBay| | 2009| 2008| 2007| 2006| 2005| 2009| 2008| Financial Leverage| 2. 8| 3. 8| 6. 7| 11. 9| 365. 5| 1. 4| | Debt to Assets| 1%| 5%| 20%| 29%| 41%| 0%| 0%| Debt to Equity| 2%| 15%| 107%| 289%| 618%| 0%| 0%| Debt to Capital| 2%| 13%| 52%| 74%| 86%| 0%| 0%| Liabilities to Equity| 1. 63| 2. 11| 4. 42| 9. 12| 14. 02| 0. 34| 0. 41| Liabilities to Assets| 62%| 68%| 82%| 90%| 93%| 25%| 29%| | | | Table 3| | | | Operations and Profitability As shown in Table 4, we reconciled Amazon’s NICO as reported to â€Å"recurring NICO† for 2004 – 2009. The diluted net earnings per common share – as reported and â€Å"recurring NICO† per common share are included too. We also included similar reconciliation for Ebay’s fiscal year 2009. Table 5 shows the complete disaggregation of profit margin and return on equity. From the ROE disaggregation we can see that between 2004 and 2009, Amazon. com maintained a gross profit margin between 22% and 24% and operating margin between 3. 6% and 6. 4%. Especially, since 2007, its operating margin stabilized at around 4. % with a slight increase in 2009. Its profit margin steadily increased 0. 2% each year from 3. 3% to 3. 7%. Amazon. com’s ROE decreased over the years due to their pay back of most of their debt. Overall, Amazon. com maintained stable operating efficiency in recent years. At the same time, its overall profit efficiency is in a sli ght uptrend. Amazon. com has negative operating cycle, which means Amazon doesn’t pay its suppliers until after it receives the payment of the sales. Therefore, Amazon doesn’t need to hold much inventory while it can hold the money for a longer period of time. This is the advantage of the online retailing. Its operating cycle decreased from -27. 58 days in 2006 days to -37. 16 days in 2009, which shows improved operating efficiency over the years. Amazon. com’s operating margin and profit margin both were pretty stable with a slight increase in 2009. We expect its profitability continue to maintain at the same level or slightly increase. Amazon. com’s operating cycle and Asset Turn Over Rate both continue to drop in the past three years (annual rate around 20% and 5% separately), which shows its improvement in operating efficiency. We expect Amazon. com continue to improve its operating efficiency. Table 4 Table 5 Business and Investment Risks As a result of our analysis, we discovered the following business and investment risks that could result in downgrading of Amazon’s stock. Intense competition – Amazon’s business is intensely competitive. It has many competitors in different industries, including retail, e-commerce services, digital content and digital media devices, and web services. The intense competition has corresponding negative impact on prices, which in turn would hurt profit margins. For example, to compete with Apple, Amazon has to lower the price of its Ebook reader – Kindle. Weakening of the U. S. or global economies — A softening of demand caused by a weakening of the U. S. or global economies may result in decreased revenue or growth. Taxation Risks – Currently, Amazon doesn’t collect sales or other taxes on shipments of most of its goods into most states in the U. S. This situation could change in the future due to regulation changes. This could decrease its ability to compete with traditional retailers. Growth Potential and Recommendation As a fast growing company, Amazon. com has a diluted recurring NICO per common share CAGR of 27% over the past five years. The diluted recurring NICO per common share increased 35% in 2009. The sustainable growth rate in 2009 was 23%. We expect Amazon to continue to maintain its growth rate. Therefore, we project the future growth rates of Amazon to be between 25% and 30%. The two year target diluted recurring NICO per common share would be between $3. 22 and $3. 48. We project Amazon’s P/E ration will be around 60. Therefore, the two year target price range for Amazon would be $193 to $209. The closing price of Amazon. com on 02/01/2010 was $118. 87. As the result of the above analysis, our recommendation of Amazon. com is BUY. How to cite Financial Statement Analysis of Amazon.Com, Papers

Screening for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary

Question: Discuss about the Screening for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary. Answer: Introduction: Geronimo, a 12 years old boy, has been diagnosed of suffering from asthma since the age of 6 years, has recently been found to be presented with exacerbation of asthma. The probable reasons for the exacerbation of asthma in this case may be attributed to three chief causes related to the cold seasonal condition, harboring of the upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) and non-adherence to prescribed medication for asthma. The case has been reported to occur in the month of November when the weather is essentially cold. Moreover mention has been made about thunderstorms. Exposure to cold, dry air in the winter season has been found to trigger asthma and has the potential to aggravate the symptoms. Furthermore, the windy, cold air due to thunderstorms might stir up pollens and allergens in the air thereby causing severe problems for those already afflicted by respiratory disorder like asthma (Walter et al., 2008). URTI may have been possibly acquired from school by Geronimo due to sel f limited viral pathogens also contributed to deterioration of his asthma symptoms. Human rhinovirus may be the causative factor for the URTI responsible for further contagious spreading of infection through inhalation of respiratory droplets from coughing or sneezing (Gern, 2010). Additionally it has been revealed that Geronimo has run out of his prescribed medication of salbutamol comprising of 2 puffs per night in the last three days. Research has shown that non-compliance to medication in asthma like condition results in adverse outcomes thereby impacting on morbidity and mortality with more pronounced effects in case of children and adolescents (Desai Oppenheimer, 2011). Based on the history provided by Geronimo and his mother it is evident that Geronimo encounters perpetual difficulty in playing sports during his soccer games. He has been reported of wheezing and coughing while laughing. Moreover he reportedly avoided running around with his peers for preventing the symptoms of feeling breathless. Till date plethora of studies carried out on the ailment of asthma has depicted that a number of causative factors are responsible for triggering the disease. In case of the pediatric population, depending upon the type of asthma and the nature of education imparted for mitigating the condition, appropriate interventions have been suggested for tackling the situation (Coffman et al., 2008). Therefore as per the information obtained regarding the symptoms for Geronimo, the type of asthma he is suffering from may be acknowledged as exercise induced asthma. Physical exertion coupled with difficult breathing, chest tightness and coughing normally characterizes exercise induced asthma and is likely to ameliorate in absence of physical exertion or exercise. The narrowing of the airway makes it difficult for the affected person to catch up with the breath and generate wheezing and cough like symptoms. Exercise induced bronchospasm culminates in the expression of heterogeneous inflammatory response that has the capacity to get cured by potent bronchodilators through opening of the blocked respiratory passage (Parsons Mastronarde, 2009). Hence, for Geronimo, exercise induced asthma is the closest possibility as his symptoms of asthma fits nearly matches with those exhibited in the said condition and increases more from participation to physically demanding activities. For Geronimo, spirometry was conducted to assess the specific lung function parameter related to FEV1. Spirometry is considered as the cornerstone of all pulmonary function tests in which medical test is performed for the purpose of measuring the volume of air an individual inhales or exhales as a function of time. Spirometric analysis has huge clinical relevance whereby obstructive and restrictive lung disorders may be detected from the assessments. The FEV1 or Forced Expiratory Volume in the first second parameter as measured in this case depicted a value of 1.64 L (55% of predicted) under the effect of exacerbating asthma condition. This reduction in the FEV1 value is suggestive of the presence of moderate obstruction in the airway. However upon administration of anti-inflammatory and bronchodilator drug named prednisolone and salbutamol respectively, the value was found to increase to 2.2 L (74% of the predicted) thereby accounting for improvement under the effect of medication a nd lessened obstruction. FEV1 basically predicts the volume of air exhaled during the first second of the forced vital capacity (FVC) maneuver and normal range lies between 3-4.5 L (Calonge et al., 2008). The recommendation of an arterial blood gas (ABG) analyzer by a Junior Doctor for Geronimo is rationale and appropriate. ABG will likely to reveal vital information regarding severity of the asthma, extent of efficacy of the therapeutic intervention for asthma, measurements related to partial pressures of oxygen and carbon dioxide, pH of blood, oxygen content as well as oxygen saturation values (Lian, 2010). Therefore data retrieved from ABG might serve to better treat the clinical condition of asthma for Geronimo. Asthma refers to a chronic inflammatory condition in which the airway is narrowed thereby causing obstruction to breathing due to swollen airway and tightening of the respiratory muscles around the airway. Symptoms of coughing, wheezing, chest tightness or shortness of breath are common in asthma. Asthma although not curable may be controlled to a large extent following proper intervention strategy and management. Different forms of asthma medication are available however their application varies depending upon the ensuing circumstances. Long term asthma control medications are generally prescribed for daily administration and include anti-inflammatory drugs of inhaled corticosteroid, oral medications comprising of leukotriene modifiers along with bronchodilator medicines like inhaled medication of long acting beta agonist, combination inhalers and Theophylline. This type of medications helps to keep asthma under control through daily dosage regime (Chung et al., 2013). Again for the sake of providing quick, short term symptom relief in case of an asthma attack quick relief mediations are effective. These include short acting beta agonists, bronchodilators like Ipratropium and various oral as well as intravenous corticosteroids. Moreover in case of asthma triggered by allergies, certain allergy medications are found to be effective through utilization of allergy shots or immunotherapy and Omalizumab medication. Allergy shots act by gradually reducing the immune system reaction in response to specific allergens. Alteration of immune function is acted upon by Omalizumab medication for treatment of patients having severe asthma. Thus for effective control of asthma through mitigation of the symptoms is recommended by means of following a step wise approach based on the severity of the condition (Tran et al., 2014). References Calonge, N., Petitti, D. B., DeWitt, T. G., Gordis, L., Dietrich, A. J., Gregory, K. D., ... Loveland-Cherry, C. (2008). Screening for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease using spirometry. Annals of internal medicine, 148(7), 529-534. Chung, K. F., Wenzel, S. E., Brozek, J. L., Bush, A., Castro, M., Sterk, P. J., ... Boulet, L. P. (2013). International ERS/ATS guidelines on definition, evaluation and treatment of severe asthma. European Respiratory Journal, erj02020-2013. Coffman, J. M., Cabana, M. D., Halpin, H. A., Yelin, E. H. (2008). Effects of asthma education on children's use of acute care services: a meta-analysis. Pediatrics, 121(3), 575-586. Desai, M., Oppenheimer, J. J. (2011). Medication adherence in the asthmatic child and adolescent. Current allergy and asthma reports, 11(6), 454-464. Gern, J. E. (2010). The ABCs of rhinoviruses, wheezing, and asthma. Journal of virology, 84(15), 7418-7426. Lian, J. X. (2010). Interpreting and using the arterial blood gas analysis. Nursing2016 Critical Care, 5(3), 26-36. Parsons, J. P., Mastronarde, J. G. (2009). Exercise-induced asthma. Current opinion in pulmonary medicine, 15(1), 25-28. Tran, N., Coffman, J. M., Sumino, K., Cabana, M. D. (2014). Patient reminder systems and asthma medication adherence: a systematic review. Journal of Asthma, 51(5), 536-543. Walter, M. J., Castro, M., Kunselman, S. J., Chinchilli, V. M., Reno, M., Ramkumar, T. P., ... Calhoun, W. J. (2008). Predicting worsening asthma control following the common cold. European Respiratory Journal, 32(6), 1548-1554.