ACF5130 Financial statement analysis and business valuation Business Analysis: Tutorial Discussion Solutions Question 1: Inflation and Interest Rates The chart below shows the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) cash rate and quarterly consumer price index (CPI) in Australia for the period December 2021 – February, 2024. The Central Bank raises interest rates to combat inflation. Theory suggests that the CPI declines when the cash rate increases. However, the data shows otherwise for this period. Explain a plausible reason why the RBA was not able to lower inflation with the rate rises until December 2022. What could be the effect of persistent rate rises on the Australian economy? Source: The chart is based on data from the Reserve Bank of Australia Question 2 COVID-19 Pandemic Supply Chains See the following excerpt from a recent KPMG report: “The recent pandemic has affected every part of the value chain, from raw material sourcing to end customer. It is testing the commercial, operational, financial and organisational resilience of the majority of companies across the globe, and has highlighted risks and resiliency gaps for many organisations. CEOs are looking to get on the front foot when it comes to disruption and innovation, with 67% saying they will increase investment in disruption detection and innovation processes.” How do supply chain disruptions affect businesses? What could be some strategies to deal with supply chain problems? Question 3 Porter’s Five Forces See the video below: Analyse the Australian supermarket industry using Porter's Five Forces framework. Based on the information provided, what are the main forces affecting competition and profitability in the industry? Do you think the industry is attractive for new entrants? Why or why not? Question 4 Climate change What are the primary challenges and opportunities that climate change presents for the Australian mining industry? Explore some strategies that mining companies can adopt to address climate risks while capitalising on opportunities for sustainable growth, innovation, and enhanced social license to operate. Question 5 Woolworths Major Risks (2023 Annual Report) Which of these : • Product and Food Safety • Macroeconomic risks? • Pay and Entitlements • Industry risks? • People • Safety, Health and Well-being • Privacy and Data Management Note that some risk factors could fit into more than one category. • Customer and Brand • Technology Availability and Cyber Security • Sustainability • Supply chain and Operational Resilience • Financial • Legal, Regulatory and Governance • Strategy and Transformation Question 6 Business Strategy Read the article titled “Faster, Cheaper Fashion; Primark”. What business strategy does Primark have? Explain. Question 7 Business Strategy Analysis 13. There are very few companies that are able to be both cost leaders and differentiators. Why? Can you think of a company that has been successful at both?
Econ 201 Stage 2 Microeconomics Tutorial 2 Question 1: Liam wants to maximize his utility subject to his budget constraint. But Te Uruti looks at Liam's consumption choice and points out that while Liam has chosen a consumption bundle that puts him on the budget constraint, nevertheless, Liam is consuming too much X and too little Y than would be the case if he was maximizing his utility. Which of the following statements is correct? Draw a diagram of Liam’s indifference curve and budget constraint to indicate where Liam is located on this budget constraint presently. (a) Liam has chosen a point that lies to the South and East (down and to the right) of the point that maximizes his utility. (b) Liam has chosen a point that lies to the North and West (up and to the left) of the point that maximizes his utility. (c) Liam is violating the assumption that of non-satiation (i.e., more is better) (d) Liam has chosen a point that lies to the South and West (down and to the left) of the point that maximizes his utility; effectively Liam has chosen a point that lies inside the opportunity set. Question 2: Henry consumes two goods X and Y. They cost the same per unit. Henry also gets the same marginal utility per dollar for each extra unit of X and Y that he consumes. Which of the following statements is correct? What does this imply for the shape of Henry’s indifference curves and about the nature of the two goods that Henry consumes? (a) Henry's preferences violate non-satiation and transitivity and therefore it is not possible to conclude what Henry might choose. (b) In maximizing utility, Henry will consume only Y and zero X. (c) In maximizing utility, Henry can choose to consume only X and zero Y, only Y and zero X or anything in between that satisfies the budget constraint. (d) In maximizing utility, Henry will consume only X and zero Y. Question 3: Ana consumes two goods X and Y. Both goods cost $1 per unit. However, Ana's utility function is such that each additional unit of X he consumes gives him two utils of happiness while each unit of Y he consumes gives him one util of happiness; in other words, each additional unit of X gives Ana twice as much utility as each additional unit of Y. Which of the following statements is correct? Draw a diagram to illustrate this situation. What can you conclude about the nature of Ana’s indifference curves and the relative slopes of Ana’s budget constraint and Ana’s indifference curves? (a) Ana's preferences violate non-satiation (the "more is better" axiom). (b) In order to maximize his utility Ana should only consume Good X. (c) Ana will be indifferent between consuming only Good X, only Good Y or any potential combination of the two goods. (d) In order to maximize his utility Ana should only consume Good Y. Question 4: Which of the following are examples of items that rely on ORDINAL/CARDINAL measurement? Happiness Height. Military ranks. Academic degrees. Weight Distance Question 5: Ana’s dad gave her $20 to spend. She wants to buy gummy bears and M&Ms. Each packet of gummy bears costs $2. Each packet of M&Ms costs $4. Which of the following combinations will she most likely buy? (a) 4 packs of gummy bears and 3 packs of M&Ms. (b) 2 packs of gummy bears and 3 packs of M&Ms. (c) 3 packs of gummy bears and 5 packs of M&Ms. (d) 4 packs of gummy bears and 2 packs of M&Ms. Question 6: Isha’s dad, who likes to subject his children to various economic experiments, gave her the following pairs of choices over shows she can attend. A: Ed Sheeran or Drake; B: Drake or Coldplay and C: ColdPlay or Ed Sheeran. Isha chose Drake for Choice A, Coldplay for Choice B and Ed Sheeran for Choice C. This suggests that Isha’s choices violate the assumption of transitivity. Why? Question 7. Dvani has $20 and is trying to decide between tubs of ice-cream and bars of chocolate. Each tub of ice-cream is worth $10 while each bar of chocolate is worth $5. Dvani calculates that if she consumes the entire tub of ice-cream then will gain an extra 30 units of utility, while if she consumes the bar of chocolate then she will get an extra 15 units of utility. If Dvani is only interested in maximizing her utility, which of the following statements CANNOT be correct? (a) Dvani should buy two tubs of ice-cream. (b) Dvani should buy four bars of chocolate. (c) Dvani should buy one tub of ice-cream and two bars of chocolate. (d) Dvani should buy one tub of ice-cream and one bar of chocolate. Question 8: Maia wants to maximize her utility subject to her budget constraint. Currently Maia is consuming at a point on her budget constraint that lies to the north-west (up and to the left) of the point of tangency between an indifference curve and the budget constraint. Which of the following statements is true? Draw a diagram to illustrate this situation. What should Maia do to maximize her utility? (a) Maia is consuming too much Y and not enough X to maximize utility. (b) Maia is consuming too much X and not enough Y to maximize utility. (c) Maia's preferences are intransitive. (d) Maia's consumption choice is located to the interior of the opportunity set (i.e, below the budget constraint). Question 9: Ethan is tossing up between one more unit of Good X and one more unit of good Y. The extra unit of X will give him extra satisfaction of 20 units while the extra unit of Y will give him extra satisfaction of 50 units. X costs $4 per unit while Y costs $10 per unit. Which of the following statements is correct? (a) Ethan should buy X since X gives him more marginal utility per dollar. (b) Ethan should buy Y since Y gives him more marginal utility per dollar. (c) Ethan would be indifferent since both X and Y yield the same marginal utility per dollar. (d) Ethan should buy Y since the extra unit of Y gives him more satisfaction (of 50 units) compared to X (20 units). Question 10. Robbie consumes two goods, X and Y. Robbie's indifference curves are downward (negatively) sloping straight lines exactly like Robbie's budget constraint. Which of the following statements is NOT true? (a) If Robbie's indifference curves are steeper than the budget constraint, then Robbie will consume only Good X and zero Good Y. (b) If Robbie's indifference curves are flatter than the budget constraint, then Robbie will consume only Good Y and zero Good X. (c) If Robbie's indifference curves have the same slope as the budget constraint, then Robbie can consume only Good X and zero Good Y or only Good Y and zero Good X or anything in between. (d) If Robbie's indifference curves are steeper than the budget constraint, then Robbie will consume only Good Y and zero Good X.
MATH375: Stochastic modelling in insurance and finance Introduction This module is about pricing financial derivatives. These are financial contracts whose value depends on, or derives from, the value of another asset, called an underlying. Two examples of the underlying are stocks and bonds. An example of a financial derivative is a European call option defined as: a contract that gives its holder the right, but not the obligation, to buy a specified asset for a price K at time T. Another example of a financial derivative is the forward contract defined as: a contract between two parties where one party has agreed to sell a specified asset for a price K at time T, whereas the other party has agreed to buy that asset for the price K at time T. Note that a forward contract is not an option, i.e. it is an obligation. Mathematically, the European call option and the forward contract are random variables, i.e. their values at time T are, respectively: where S(T) is the value of underlying at time T (and the value of forward contract corresponds to the party that has agreed to buy the underlying). The main aim of this module is find the price (value) of these contracts for time t ∈ [0,T]. This is given by the risk-neutral pricing formula: where X is the terminal value of the financial derivative. In this module, we cover the necessary mathematics to derive this formula and then apply it for pricing various financial derivatives. Delivery The module will be delivered by two lecturers. I will cover the first six weeks, whereas the remaining five weeks are delivered by Dr Ronnie Loeffen (email:[email protected]; office: room 307 of the Maths building). The last week, Week 12, will be revision. Beginning with Week 2, there will be three hours of lectures and one hour tutorial. In Week 1 there will be no tutorials, i.e. there will be four hours of lectures during this week. I will deliver the lectures by writing on my tablet and/or on the board. You are encouraged to take notes during the lectures. During the tutorials, we will go through some of the questions together. The typed lecture notes will be uploaded on CANVAS at the beginning of each week, whereas the writing during lectures will be uploaded on CANVAS at the end of each week. The tutorial questions and solutions will also be uploaded on canvas each week. All lectures will be recorded, and should appear on CANVAS after the lectures. The lecture notes and the tutorials are sufficient for this module. Those of you who would like to read more on this subject can consult the books: 1. S. Shreve, Stochastic calculus for finance II: continuous-time models, Springer, 2008. 2. N. H. Bingham and R. Kiesel, Risk-neutral valuation, Springer, 2004.
BAA1034 PRINCIPLES OF BUSINESS ANALYTICS ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS 1. This is a group project (4 students per group) worth 30% of your final marks for the subject. The total number of marks for this assignment is 70. 2. Ensure that you regularly make back-up copies of your work. Computer, disk, or laptop problems will not be accepted as valid reasons for late submissions or requests for extensions. 3. Answer the questions according to the parts stated. All answers including the analysis (i.e. tables and charts) conducted in Microsoft Excel, need to be transferred into a Microsoft Word document. 4. Students should adhere to the following formatting and referencing guidelines: (a) Use default format, paragraph, and margin settings (b) Font: Times New Roman (c) Font size: 12 (d) Line spacing: 1.5 5. Generative artificial intelligence (Al) tools can be used to conduct research pertaining to the assessment task. Any use of these tools must be appropriately acknowledged. 6. You will also be required to put your assignment through SafeAssign. The similarity index should not be more than 15%. Note that this is only a rough guideline. Some common usage of phrases and sentences may contribute to the similarity index. You should not be worried about this particular instance. 7. Your submission should include: (a) Cover sheet which includes the names and student ID numbers of group members (b) PDF file containing your answers (c) Excel file (.xlsx) of your analysis BACKGROUND In today's dynamic and competitive retail environment, understanding consumer shopping behaviour is crucial for businesses to thrive and effectively meet customer needs. This Group Assignment will allow you to investigate the complexities of consumer behaviour. The dataset that you will be working with captures a wide range of consumer purchases, offering a multifaceted view of shopping patterns and preferences. This includes: 1. Demographic information (Age, Gender) 2. Purchase details (Item Purchased, Category, Purchase Amount) 3. Indicator of customer behaviour (Frequency of Purchases) 4. Contextual factors (Season) 5. Transaction details (Payment Method, Shipping Type) This collection of variables allows for a nuanced exploration of how various factors interact to shape consumer choices and shopping patterns. Your task is to apply a range of statistical and data visualization techniques to uncover meaningful patterns and relationships within this data. DATA Download the data file from eLearn. The data file contains the following variables: DATA PREPARATION The dataset contains 3,900 observations of consumers' shopping behaviour. For this Group Assignment, you are required to draw a random sample of 2,000 observations and conduct data analysis based on this random sample. 1. Add a new column (column K) and name this column as "Random Number". 2. In cell K2, type the Excel function =RAND(). Press "Enter" and a random number will appear in the cell. Note: The number that you see in your sheet will differ from the number shown in the image below. 3. Fill in the remaining cells in the column up to the last observation. Note: The values will change each time you do this, but it is not an issue. 4. Sort the random numbers from "Smallest to Largest". Note: You will notice that the random numbers are not sorted from the smallest to the largest value. However, the Customer ID column will be sorted randomly. 5. After sorting, select the first 2,000 observations. Copy and paste these 2,000 observations into the sheet named "n = 2000". Your analysis should be based on the data in this new Excel sheet. ASSIGNMENT TASK Part A: Descriptive Analysis – Age Group and Frequency of Purchases (25 marks) Where necessary, values should be presented in 2 decimal places. 1. Create a new column, "Age Group", using an appropriate Excel function that contains the following categories: 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65 or older (3 marks) 2. Using the appropriate Excel function, obtain a frequency distribution for Age Group by filling in Table 1. (6 marks) Before attempting the subsequent questions, sort the data by Age Group in ascending order. Filter the data for those aged below 35 years, and copy and paste these datad into the sheet named "Below 35". Do the same for observations for those aged 35 and above into the sheet named "35 and above". 3. Obtain two frequency distributions for the Frequency of Purchases by using the appropriate Excel function- one for the "Below 35" category and another for the "35 and above” category. Fill in your answers in Table 2. In your own words, explain why using percentage frequency (i.e. proportion) is better than using frequency when describing categories. (10 marks) 4. Use an appropriate chart to visualize the information in Table 2. (3 marks) 5. Based on Part A: Questions 3 and 4, discuss the relationship between Age Group and Frequency of Purchases. (3 marks) Part B: Descriptive Analysis - Age Group and Purchase Amount (25 marks) Where necessary, values should be presented in 2 decimal places. 1. Obtain the summary statistics for Purchase Amount for the "Below 35" and "35 and above" categories. This analysis can be done in the respective sheets containing the data for the two categories. (2 marks) 2. Transfer the information from Part B: Question 1 into Table 3. Fill in the remaining information in Table 3 using the relevant Excel functions and formulas. (10 marks) 3. Discuss and compare the measures of location for the two age categories. (4 marks) 4. Discuss and compare the measures of dispersion for the two age categories. (4 marks) 5. Use an appropriate chart to visualize the distribution of Purchase Amount for the two age categories. Ensure that you provide an interpretation of the chart. (5 marks) Part C: Probability — Age Group and Payment Method (12 marks) Answers for this part should be presented in 3 decimal places. Ensure that you show all calculations. 1. Construct a PivotTable for Age Group and Payment Method in a new sheet and name this sheet "Part C (PivotTable)". (2 marks) 2. What is the probability that a randomly selected customer is between 45-54 years of age? (2 marks) 3. What is the probability that a randomly selected customer uses a credit card as their payment method? (2 marks) 4. What is the probability that a randomly selected customer is between 18-24 years old and uses Venmo as their payment method? (2 marks) 5. What is the probability that a randomly selected customer uses a credit card as their payment method, given that the customer is between 18-24 years old? Are these events independent? (4 marks) Part D: Visualization - Category, Item Purchased, and Purchase Amount (8 marks) 1. This part requires you to do some additional research. Use a new Excel sheet to answer this part and name the sheet "Part D". 1. There are four main categories in the dataset: Accessories, Clothing, Footwear, and Outerwear. Each of these categories contains a variety of specific items that customers have purchased. Create a comprehensive visualization that presents a hierarchical view of the product categories, and their specific items along with the purchase amount for each item. You should avoid using bar and column charts in your visualization. Note: This should be answered using a single chart. (5 marks) 2. Provide some insights into the visualization produced. (3 marks)
Econ 201 Stage 2 Microeconomics Tutorial 1 Question 1: Consider the following two equations. (i) x + 2y = 120; (ii) y + 2x = 120 (a) Rewrite the two equations in y = f(x) format. (b) Graph the two equations in x-y plane. (c) What is the actual slope and absolute slope of Equation (i)? What is the actual and absolute slope of Equation (ii)? Which line is steeper, (i) or (ii)? (d) What is the x and y intercept of Equation (i) and of Equation (ii) (e) Find the value of X and Y that solve the two equations. Question 2: Consider the following information for the demand and supply curves in a market. (a) Find the equations for the two in P = f(Q) form. Find the price and quantity intercepts of demand and the price intercept of supply. (b) Solve for the equilibrium price and quantity. (c) What is the magnitude of the consumer surplus? What is the magnitude of the producer surplus? Demand Supply Q P Q P 10 100 10 10 20 80 20 20 30 60 30 30 Question 3: Suppose a firm’s total cost is given by C(q) = 192 + 12q^2, where q refers to quantity. C(q) simply means that cost is a function of quantity q. Derive an expression for Average Cost (AC) and Marginal Cost (MC) in terms of quantity (q). Question 4: Consider a monopolist facing a downward sloping demand function of the form. P = 100 – Q where Q denotes quantity produced by the monopolist. Derive an expression for the Total Revenue and Marginal Revenue for this monopolist in terms of Q. Question 5: Isha is hanging out at Newmarket with her friends. She has $40 to spend. She can spend this on hot chips or Gongcha bubble tea. From experience hot chips are $4 per packet while Gongcha is $5. Isha’s total expenditure must add up exactly to $40. (a) If Isha buys “h” packets of hot chips and/or “g” glasses of Gongcha, what is the equation for her budget constraint? [The budget constraint is an equation that shows how the expenditures on the two goods add up to the total “income” available.] (b) Graph this budget constraint and find the intercepts on the “h” and “g” axes. (c) What happens to her budget constraint if she suddenly finds an extra $20 in her cellphone case; i.e., the money she has at her disposal (her “income”) goes up to $60? Rewrite the equation for the budget constraint. What are the new “h” and “g” intercepts. (d) Suppose Isha has $60 available to her. The price of hot chips is $4 per packet but Isha finds that the bubble tea price has gone up to $6. What is the equation for the budget constraint? What are the h and g intercepts now? Draw a diagram to illustrate the situation comparing (d) and (c). (e) Suppose Isha has $60 available to her. The price of bubble tea is $5 per glass but Isha finds that the hot chips price has gone up to $5. What is the equation for the budget constraint? What are the h and g intercepts now? Draw a diagram to illustrate the situation comparing (c) and (e).
ACF5130 Financial statement analysis and business valuation Capital Market Analysis: Tutorial Questions Question 1 On January 24, 2023, Hindenburg, a US financial firm, released a report targeting Adani companies that it said was the result of a long investigation. Hindenburg Research accused Adani a “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme” that has driven up the price of the listed Adani companies and inflated the net worth of its billionaire chairman, Mr Gautam Adani. Hindenburg pointed to the large debt held by Adani companies that put the entire group on a difficult financial situation. The graph below (from Yahoo! Finance) shows the share prices of Adani Enterprises Ltd, the main Adani company and the Nifty 50 Index of the National Stock Exchange for the period 2 Jan 2023 – 20 February 2023. Is the market’s response rational? Question 2 Redder Bus Ltd. is a new bus company, recently listed on the Utopia Stock Exchange. It has a fleet of 5 buses, all of which are leased. The leases are currently classified as operating leases in the books of the company. Redder Bus Ltd. prepares its financial statements in accordance with IFRS. Following the introduction of the new IFRS standard on leases (IFRS 16), Redder Bus Ltd adopted the new standard and reported its first set of financial results under the new standard in its annual report for the year ended 30 June 2020. Under the new standard, Redder Bus Ltd. will have to bring its fleet of buses on to its balance sheet and record the associated lease liability. REQUIRED: Ignoring income taxes, explain how this change of accounting policy is likely to affect the value of Redder Bus Ltd. How would an efficient capital market respond to the change of accounting policy? Question 3 Microsoft reported its second quarter financial results on 30th January 2024. The company reported earnings per share of USD 2.93 and revenue of USD 62.02 billion. The prevailing analyst estimates were respectively USD 2.78 and USD 61.12 billion. Below is an excerpt from a report on CNBC: “Microsoft shares moved as much as 2% lower in extended trading Tuesday after the software maker issued fiscal second-quarter results that outdid analysts’ estimates and a light quarterly revenue outlook…Microsoft called for fiscal third-quarter revenue between $60 billion and $61 billion, or $60.50 billion at the middle of the range. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected $60.93 billion. But the company sees lower-than-expected cost of revenue and operating expenses during the quarter, based on consensus among analysts polled by StreetAccount… The company’s Intelligent Cloud segment produced $25.88 billion in revenue, up 20% and above the $25.29 billion consensus among analysts surveyed by StreetAccount. The grouping contains Azure cloud infrastructure, SQL Server, Windows Server, Nuance, GitHub and enterprise services. Within that segment, revenue from Azure and other cloud services grew 30%. Analysts polled by CNBC had expected 27.7% growth, and the StreetAccount consensus was 27.5%.... Three months ago Microsoft’s top cloud competitor, Amazon, indicated that customers’ efforts to reduce spending were slowing down. On Tuesday Nadella suggested that Microsoft has started seeing a similar shift. “That period of massive, I’ll call it, optimization only, and no new workload start — that, I think, has ended at this point,” Nadella said. The closing stock price of Microsoft on 30 Jan 2024 was $408.59. After the earnings announcement, the stock price fell, before closing at $397.58 at the close of trading on 31 Jan 2024. The NASDAQ index changed from 17,476.71 on 30 Jan 2024 to 17,137.24 on 31 Jan 2024. Microsoft has a beta of 0.90. Question 3 Required: Calculate the abnormal return of Microsoft on 31 Jan 2024. Is the fall in the share price of Microsoft following the earnings announcement consistent with your expectations? Explain. Question 4 Refer to the excel file “Stocks and Market Index.xlsx” For your assigned company, chart its price movement with that of the market Compare the performance of your assigned company with that of the Market Index. Question 5 Refer to the excel file “Stocks and Market Index.xlsx” Calculate the risk-adjusted return for your assigned company The 10-year government bond rate in India is currently 7.09%. Question 6 What is the difference between market-adjusted return and abnormal return? Question 7 In 2020, Nikola, a manufacturer of electric trucks, experienced a dramatic rise in its stock price due to positive company announcements and optimistic media coverage. However, later that year, Hindenburg Research, a short-selling firm, published a report accusing Nikola of making false claims about its technology and capabilities. This resulted in a significant plunge in Nikola's stock price. Question: Who had more information about Nikola's true state in 2020: investors or Nikola management? Explain your answer. How did this information asymmetry impact different stakeholders (investors, Nikola management)? Question 8 Refer to the excel file “Spreads and Volumes.xlsx”. Calculate the average spread and trading volume over the period and interpret these results.
INTE2584 Introduction to Cybersecurity Governance Assessment 3: Cyber security Strategy and Program Development and Management Due date: Sunday, Week 13 , 11:59pm (Melbourne Time) Weighting: 30% Word limit: 2000 words (+/-10%) Assessment type: Report Group or individual assessment: Individual Overview Building on the insights gained from the assessment 1 case study on MIHS, your task is to craft a comprehensive security strategy and program tailored to the organization's specific needs. This endeavour involves a meticulous analysis of the organizational context, including a deep understanding of MIHS's business objectives and an assessment of the prevailing threat landscape and associated risks. The culmination of your insights and strategic recommendations will be a meticulously documented and presented formal business report. Purpose The purpose of this assessment is multifaceted. It's designed to showcase your grasp of key cybersecurity governance outcomes, particularly strategic alignment in sculpting a cybersecurity strategy that resonates with the specific business context of MIHS. Your proficiency in understanding the nuances of cybersecurity governance outcomes, the application of structured frameworks, and the strategic aspects of cybersecurity will serve as essential building blocks for your future endeavours in the domain of cyber governance within the professional sphere. Moreover, you'll demonstrate your understanding of how to convert a cybersecurity strategy into a tangible cybersecurity program for businesses undergoing digital transformation, preparing you to address security issues in a professional context. Furthermore, this task aims to refine your professional communication abilities, equipping you with the necessary skills to adeptly handle the diverse array of cybersecurity governance tasks encountered in various business settings. What do you need to deliver? • 1 report Tools • Microsoft Word Course learning outcomes This assessment is linked to the following course learning outcomes: CLO 4 Evaluate cybersecurity asset management, risk management strategies and security program management used in business organisations. CLO 5 Apply the usage of performance metrics, KPIs and reporting in cybersecurity governance. Marking criteria 1. Introduction (3 pts) • Organizational Context: Evaluates your ability to clearly articulate the organization's context, mission, and strategic goals. 2. 3. Development of a Comprehensive Cybersecurity Strategy (10 pts) • Cybersecurity Strategy: Evaluates your ability to craft a clear, robust, and context-specific cybersecurity strategy. It should encompass well-defined goals, objectives, and initiatives, showcasing a deep understanding of cybersecurity governance outcomes and alignment with the business environment. 4. Cybersecurity Program Management (12 pts) • Program Development: Assesses your ability to translate strategic initiatives into practical cybersecurity projects and initiatives within a program management framework. 5. Performance Metrics and Reporting (5 pts) • Metrics Development: Evaluates your ability to develop meaningful performance metrics to track and measure the success of the cybersecurity program. • Reporting Structure: Assesses your ability to design a clear and effective reporting scheme to communicate cybersecurity performance and progress to stakeholders. Assessment Details Case study overview Consider that you have been hired by the company you considered in assessment 1 as a security professional to help them address the cybersecurity strategy and program management challenges that come with such initiatives. Target Audience Executive level staff at the organisation. Recommended Length and Structure Your report will be approximately 2000 words long (+/-10%), excluding references, appendices , footnotes, bibliography and graphs. It should include the following sections: You can use the following structure for preparing your report. Suggested word counts are included. • introduction • Cybersecurity Strategy o Maturity Assessment using NIST CSF o Strategic Security Objectives ( based on maturity assessment and business needs) o Strategic Security Initiatives • Cybersecurity program development o Derive projects from initiatives o Project management • Performance metrics and KPI, and Reporting o Success criteria in your program and project Please note that the above-mentioned structure is a basic structure for preparing the report and you are expected and encouraged to add further sections, sub-sections, and components to enhance the overall structure, design, and presentation of your report. Required references You should aim to cite at least 10 references from reputable sources (e.g., academic, industry body publications, white papers). Referencing Guidelines Use RMIT Harvard referencing style. for this assessment. If you are using secondary sources, include these as a reference list in your report. You must acknowledge all the sources of information you have used in your assessments. Refer to the RMIT Easy Cite referencing tool to see examples and tips on how to reference in the appropriate style. You can also refer to the Library referencing page for other tools such as EndNote, referencing tutorials and referencing guides for printing. Submission instructions The assessment will be submitted in Canvas as a Word document or PDF file (doc, docx, pdf). Academic integrity and plagiarism information Academic integrity is about honest presentation of your academic work. It means acknowledging the work of others while developing your own insights, knowledge, and ideas. You should take extreme care that you have: • Acknowledged words, data, diagrams, models, frameworks and/or ideas of others you have quoted (i.e., directly copied), summarised, paraphrased, discussed, or mentioned in your assessment through the appropriate referencing methods • Provided a reference list and /or bibliography of the publication details so your reader can locate the source if necessary. This includes material used from Internet sites. If you do not acknowledge the sources of your material, you may be accused of plagiarism because you have passed off the work and ideas of another person without appropriate referencing, as if they were your own. RMIT University treats plagiarism as a very serious offence constituting misconduct. Plagiarism covers a variety of inappropriate behaviours, including: • Failure to properly document a source • Copyright material from the internet or databases • Collusion between students For further information on our policies and procedures, please refer to the University website.
Module Nine: Net Present Value Analysis of Breezyville Wind Power Project Background The Town of Breezyville is considering initiating a wind power project to provide electricity to its residents. The wind power project will be located on the outskirts of Breezyville. The project is being considered for both its economic and environmental benefits. The key question that the Town of Breezyville is trying to address is: does the wind power project make sense from an environmental and economic sense? Below is some of the information that the Town has collected to estimate the benefits and costs of the proposed wind power project. In this case examined here, we assume a single turbine, 1.5 Megawatt (MW) project. The site being considered has strong, predictable winds that make it a good candidate for a wind power project. It is assumed that the Breezyville wind power project will operate 33% of the time based upon the availability of wind. All monetary values used in this exercise are in real $2020 dollars. Capital Costs Wind project costs are a function of many variables, but not limited to, project size, ownership structure, location and characteristics of a particular site, turbine and turbine manufacture, exchanges rates (i.e., if a foreign turbine is used) and even commodity costs (i.e., the cost of steel). For this exercise, some simplifying assumptions have been made. It is estimated that the capital costs of the Breezyville wind power project can be divided into four components: the turbine purchase, construction costs to install the turbine, costs to connect the turbine to the local electricity grind, and “soft” costs such as legal fees, engineering and siting plans etc. In total, the cost of installing the wind turbine is roughly $1,880,000 in the first year of the project. Assume for this exercise for simplicity, that the capital costs are a one-time expense that occurs in the first year of the project. Operating Costs The operating costs of the Breezyville wind power project include a variety of components such as operations and maintenance of the wind turbine, repair costs, management and administrative costs, property taxes, the costs to lease the land and insurance. Operating costs are estimates at roughly $87,000 annually. The wind power project is anticipated to operate for twenty years. Annual operating costs for this exercise are assumed to be constant though time. Scrappage Value At the end of its useful life (i.e., 20 years), it is anticipated that the wind turbine can be sold at roughly $100,000. This is the scrappage value of the wind power project in twenty years. Electricity Price Once the Breezyville wind power project is up (i.e., in the first year) and running it will produce electricity that can sold into the existing electricity grid. The price of electricity in Breezyville is $0.07/ kilowatt-hour. Avoided Climate Damages and U.S. Government Tax Credit The wind power project will produce no carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Thus, the Breezyville wind power project will avoid climate related environmental damages. For this exercise, it is assumed that if the wind power project had not been built that electricity produced from diesel power would have been used instead to produce electricity for the Breezyville residents. The diesel electricity plant would have produce climate damages of roughly $0.04/kilowatt hour (assuming that CO2 reductions are valued at roughly $50/ton). (The “horizon” value for C02 is captured in the $0.04/kilowatt hour estimate. Thus, for this exercise assume that the “horizon” value for C02 is zero). Also, to help finance and spur wind projects across the country, the U.S. government is providing a renewable wind tax credit of $0.04/ kilowatt-hour to help promote the use of wind power. The tax credit is assumed to extend throughout the 20 years of the wind power project lifetime. Key Assumptions For this exercise assume that: 1 Megawatt (Mw) = 1000 Kilowatts (Kw) 1 Mw x 24 hours x 365 days (full capacity) = 8760 Megawatt hours (Mwh) Questions: Part One (1) Main Case: Create a timeline in chart form. to show the benefits and costs of the Breezyville wind power project with the assumptions listed in the above section. (2) Main Case: Calculate the net present value of the Breezyville wind power project using: (1) a 3% discount rate and, (2) a 7% discount rate. (3) Main Case: Calculate the internal rate of return for the Breezyville wind power project. Assume that the tax credit is a transfer payment from the federal government to Breezyville to help incentivize wind power. Since the payment “nets out” between the federal government and Breezyville, it is not considered a social benefit for purposes of Part One of this exercise. Part Two (1) Sensitivity One: Instead of a 20-year lifetime the wind turbine, assume that the wind turbine has a lifetime of 10 years. Assume also that there is no scrappage value for the wind turbine at the end of its useful life (i.e., 10 years). What is the net present value of the wind project with a 3% and 7% discount rate with a 10-year useful life for the wind project? What is the estimate of the internal rate of return with a 10-year useful life for the wind project? Create a chart to show the time line of costs and benefits for this sensitivity. Assume for this sensitivity that the tax credit is a transfer payment from the federal government to Breezyville to help incentivize wind power. Since the payment “nets out” between the federal government and Breezyville, it is not considered a social benefit for purposes of this sensitivity. (2) Sensitivity Two: Assume that the amount of wind power in Breezyville is overestimated and that the capacity factor of the wind power project is only 16%. Assume a 20-year lifetime for the wind project, a scrappage value of $100,000 at the end of 20 years and that the Federal wind tax credit remains in place at $0.04/kwh. What is the net present value of the wind project with a 3% and 7% discount rate with the lower capacity factor? What is the estimate of the internal rate of return with the lower capacity factor? Create a chart to show the time line of costs and benefits for this sensitivity. For this sensitivity, assume that the tax credit is a transfer payment from the federal government to Breezyville to help incentivize wind power. Since the payment “nets out” between the federal government and Breezyville, it is not considered a social benefit for purposes of this sensitivity. (3) Sensitivity Three: For this sensitivity, assume that Breezyville is just looking at financial costs and benefits that the Town incurs/receives from the wind power project. In other words, the Town of Breezyville doesn’t consider the climate benefits of the project. Also, assume that because of budget pressures, the Federal wind tax credit ($0.04/kwh) is eliminated. Continue to assume that the wind turbine has a useful life of 20 years, and that the scrappage value of the project at the end of 20 years is $100,000 and that the capacity factor for the wind power project is 33%. What is the net present value of the wind project with a 3% and 7% discount rate from the Town’s perspective in this sensitivity? What is the estimated internal rate of return from the Town’s perspective in this sensitivity? Create a chart to show the timeline of costs and benefits for this sensitivity. Directions Review the questions above along with the course materials and the Boardman et al. reading. After reviewing these items and assessing each individual question, respond to each question thoroughly. Scoring Rubric Area Weight of Row Unacceptable Satisfactory Exemplary Methods for Calculating Exhaustion/Optimal Depletion of an Exhaustible Resource 6 points (0 – 4.79 points) Demonstrates an understanding and synthesis of some of the concepts assessing the scarcity/optimal depletion of an exhaustible resource. (4.8 – 5.39 points) Demonstrates an understanding and synthesis of most of the concepts assessing the scarcity/optimal depletion of an exhaustible resource. (5.4 or greater points) Demonstrates an understanding and synthesis of all of the concepts assessing the scarcity/optimal depletion of an exhaustible resource.
Assignment 5: Cyber Security Concepts Course Name: COMP SCI 1500 - Cyber Security Assessment Component: Individual Assessment Due Date: Week 11, 23:59pm Monday 14 October 2024 Submission: Portable Document Format (.pdf) or Word document (.docx/.doc) on MyUni The report of this assignment should be in A4-size page with Times New Roman or similar font, size 12. The first page of the report should include your full name and student ID. How to Submit: The activity solution will be submitted via an upload facility created for this activity on Canvas. Question 1 - Cryptography ( 8 marks) 1. Study the three encryption methods given below and their weaknesses. 2. Solve the following three exercises, in each case your task is to recover the plaintext. • Mono-alphabetic substitution: You are given a ciphertext “ex1.enc” encrypted using the mono- alphabetic substitution method. Hint: the key is a mapping of 26 plaintext English characters to 26 ciphertext English characters. • Poly-alphabetic shift (Vigenère cipher): You are given a ciphertext “ex2.enc” encrypted using the poly-alphabetic shift method. Hint: the key consists of 4 English characters, and the plaintext contains the name of the day of the week. • Textbook RSA: You are given (1) Python3 script “textbook_rsa.py” which contains functions related to the Textbook RSA encryption scheme (2) RSA public key “rsa_key.pub” (3) Ciphertext “ex3.enc” encrypted using the given RSA public key. Hint: the plaintext consists of only 3 English characters. 3. Write a report on how you solved those exercises and the weaknesses you exploited. If you cannot recover the plaintext, explain what method you have tried and why you couldn't recover them (for example, if it is infeasible due to computing resources). A report that contains only plaintexts without further explanation will not be marked. 4. Tips about how I would go about doing this activity: I would familiarize myself with frequency analysis and cryptanalysis based on the validity of English words. Study the given Python script and write some scripts to check your understanding regarding the rsa_keygen(), rsa_encrypt() and rsa_decrypt() functions – you may need to use some of this code. Then, solve the exercises. Finally, explain how you tried to solve those exercises, what methods or techniques you used, plaintexts (and keys, if possible) that you recovered. Include the information in the report and submit to Canvas. Please note that answers copied from online or without adequate explanation will not receive any points. Question 2 - Common Vulnerability Scoring System ( 3 marks) The Common Vulnerability Scoring System is a method of objectively scoring security vulnerabilities so that their severity can be assessed, understood and compared. Read this explanation of CVSS -> https://www.first.org/cvss/specification-document Given the following hypothetical vulnerability, apply the CVSS v.3.1 or v.4 scoring system to get a CVSS base score and CVSS base vector string. Referencing the description of the hypothetical vulnerability below, describe why you have chosen each of the fields in the vector string. A remote vulnerability has been discovered in the BitMessage desktop messaging application which allows an unauthenticated person to delete a BitMessage message of their victim. The attacker can trigger this vulnerability by sending a BitMessage message to the victim containing the text 'deletemessage?message=2' where '2' is the message ID. When the desktop application receives this message any message matching the specified message ID is deleted. There is no indication to the victim that anything has happened and the application continues to operate, the victims message just disappears permanently. Hint: You might want make use of this link to generate the base score and vector string--> https://www.first.org/cvss/calculator/3.1 https://www.first.org/cvss/calculator/4.0 Question 3 - Risk Management (2 marks) a) The risk of security incidents can be managed in one of four different ways. Risk can be mitigated, transferred, avoided or accepted. Describe what each of these strategies entail and describe how the risk is modified by applying each approach. b) The NIST Cyber Security Management Framework segments security management activities into 5 functions: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond and Recover Describe each of these functions, their purpose and describe an example of a security activity typically performed for each of these functions. Question 4 - General Cybersecurity/Cryptography Knowledge (2 marks) a) Authentication and authorization are often confused. What is the difference between the two? b) What is the purpose of a firewall and how does it reduce the risk of a cyber-attack? c) Describe the following concepts and their effect in terms of the C.I.A.triad. • Message Authentication Code (MAC) • Digital Signature • Birthday Paradox d) Can a traditional antivirus prevent zero-day attacks? Why or why not? In your answer consider how an antivirus signature works and how they are constructed.
ENVI3114/5707 Energy and the Environment Question 1: (6 points) Consider a combined cycle power plant (gas turbine and a steam turbine) burning natural gas as follows: Hot gas temperature = 1100 ºC Cold gas temperature = 400 ºC Real efficiency factor of both gas and steam turbine (as a fraction of Carnot efficiency) = 0.6 Inlet temperature for steam turbine = 380 ºC Outlet temperature for steam turbine = 50 ºC Greenhouse coefficient of natural gas = 53 Gg of CO2 / PJ. Calculate: a) Carnot and real efficiency of gas turbine alone. b) Carnot and real efficiency of steam turbine alone. c) Total effective efficiency of gas to electricity conversion (gas and steam turbines combined, ignore the 20 degrees heat loss between the gas turbine outlet and the steam turbine inlet). d) GHG emissions from generating 8 GWh of electricity (measured at the power plant). Question 2: (6 points): Compare the total costs to the consumer, the greenhouse gas emissions, and the electricity use for four different consumer uses of electricity over a time period of 5 years: a) a 60 W incandescent light bulb (price $2.00, typical lifetime of 1000 hours), bulb on for 4 hrs 24 minutes per day;ENVI3114/5707 Calculation Assessment 2024 2 Copyright © (2024), The University of Sydney b) an 9 W LED bulb ($8, typical lifetime of 8000 hours), lighting duration as in part a); c) the clock on a microwave, with consumption of 15 W all the time; d) the microwave in operation (1200 W electrical power), for 10 minutes per day, every day for 5 years. Assume that the electricity is generated from black coal at a cost to the consumer of 24 cents per kWh. Note that you can use the following information: generation of 1 MWh of electricity from black coal produces 1.0 t of CO2-e. Ignore the capital cost of the clock and microwave and ignore associated embodied emissions for all cases. Question 3: (5 points) An island community of 2000 people wants to install some wind turbines to meet some of their electricity needs. Each person uses on average 5 kWh per day, and the peak load is low at 500 We per person. There is no restriction on the number of wind turbines, but the length of the blades is restricted to 20 m for aesthetic reasons. [Since bigger turbines are more cost effective, you can assume this maximum blade size is used.] The turbines operate at 66% of the theoretical ideal wind-power efficiency of 59% (see the equation in the lecture notes), and the electrical conversion efficiency is a further 95%. You can assume that the remaining electricity is supplied by a diesel-fired back-up generator and that if there is excess wind electricity generated it can be stored for later use with no losses. Find the following: a) the yearly total electrical energy required for the island. b) the peak electrical capacity (total load) required for the island. c) the number of turbines (to the nearest integer, eg. 10.1 turbines is close enough to 10) required to meet the peak capacity under maximum wind conditions of a velocity of 10 ms-1 . d) the amount of wind electricity in proportion to the total electrical energy required (note this is not the capacity factor) if there is an average of 8 ms-1 for 5 hours per day, for 300 days a year. e) the amount of wind electricity in proportion to the total electrical energy required if there is instead an average of 12 ms-1 over the same time as in part d). Question 4: (3 points) An energy entrepreneur is planning a network of pumped sea-water energy storage facilities at suitable locations around the Australian coast. You can assume each will be a dam with depth of 10 m and with an average vertical height fall (head) of 150 m applicable to the whole water volume. Assume the conversion efficiency of the gravitational potential energy (P = m.g.h = mass x acceleration due to gravity x head) to electrical energy is 90%. The total electrical storage amount to cover is 50 TWh, or approximately 20% of Australia’s total electricity requirement at present. You may also need g = 9.8 m.s-2 and the density of sea water = 1020 kg.m-3 = 1.02 kg.L-1 . If the dams are all 1.0 km by 1.0 km in surface area, calculate the number of facilities needed to meet the total electricity requirement above (to the nearest integer). You may want to refer to the in-class activity of week 7 for this question.
Final Project Logistics: You may choose one of the topics listed below, or choose your own, subject to in- structor’s approval. Your project must include a written paper and coding in Julia. You may work alone or with a partner; if you work as a pair, you should make only one submission, assigning credit to both partners, and both partners will receive the same grade. You must choose a project topic and a partner (if applicable) by Friday, November 22; fill out this form no later than 11/22. Your final project is due Friday, December 6th by 11:59pm Format: You will typeset a paper that: summarizes the linear algebra background required for your project; the code you wrote and the results you obtained; and a summary of what you learned. It should be written so that someone else in the class could read and under- stand your paper. You must include your code—you can typeset it in LaTeX or print a Julia notebook to pdf and include it as an appendix. You should submit a single pdf on gradescope. Grading: Projects are graded out of 5 points. A project with working code and a readable paper will earn 3-4 points. Projects which also explore some facet of the project beyond the minimal requirements can earn 5 points. Examples include: applying your code to different or larger datasets, implementing variations of your algorithm and testing how they compare, researching and writing up some of the more advanced theory behind your application, or any other extension you are interested in. In other words: take your project in some direction that is interesting to you! Quality is better than quantity: Thoughtful exploration of one or two questions is better than superficial treatment of more. You will be evaluated on: 1. Mathematics and code • Does your code produce the intended results on all valid inputs? • Is your code well organized and documented? • Are the mathematical ideas implemented correctly? • Are the choices (e.g. of parameters) made in the code appropriate? 2. Paper • Is the paper structured (in sections and paragraphs) to clearly explain your work? • Is the writing clear, grammatical, and free of errors? • Is the mathematical notation defined and consistent? • Are the following things clearly and correctly explained? – Mathematical background – Algorithms and computations (Pseudocode and examples are critical.) – Coding and algorithm design decisions – Results and interpretation of computations • Does your paper have a complete bibliography that contains the background for your work and any other work you refer to? Project 1: Iterative methods to compute eigenvectors and singular vectors Background: In practice, eigenvalues, eigenvectors, singular values, and singular vectors are not computed by finding the roots of the characteristic polynomial (which is the method typ- ically discussed in a linear algebra course). This method is slow and very unstable (roundoff errors can compound to make the calculations inaccurate). Instead, one can use iterative methods. Two such methods are the Power method and the QR method. Project: Use the references listed below (and/or additional references of your choosing) to learn what the Power and QR methods are and why they work. Then write some Julia code to compute leading eigenvectors and singular vectors using these methods (you may restrict yourself to symmetric matrices to guarantee that the eigenvalues and eigenvectors are real). Then you might consider some extensions, such as • Use deflation or some other method to compute all eigenvectors or singular vectors for a matrix. • Determine why these methods are fast and accurate and what factors affect the speed of convergence (e.g. ratio of first two eigenvalues). Do some experiments to compare the speed of convergence under different conditions. • Explore what modifications can be made to make these methods even faster (e.g. shifting, Hessenberg matrices, etc.). Implement some such modifications. • Alter these methods to handle complex eigenvectors or eigenvalues. • Explore how eigenvector methods are used in polynomial solvers. (In practice, rather than finding roots of polynomials to find eigenvalues, we do the opposite: Determine eigenvalues to find roots of polynomials.) References • Strang (5th Edition) Chapter 11.3 (p. 528-529) • Foundations of Data Science by Blum, Hopcroft, and Kannan, Chapter 3.7 (ebook available through CMU library) • (for advanced topics) Matrix Computations by Golub and Van Loan, e.g. Chapter 7. (physically copy available at CMU library) Project 2: Markov chains, random walks, and PageRank Background: When you search for a topic on a web browser, you are provided with a list of related websites. How does the web browser decide the order of that list? It uses a page ranking algorithm. For this project you will explore two early page ranking algorithms that rank pages based on the link structure of the internet. The original algorithm used by Google is called PageRank. Project: Use the references listed below (and/or additional references of your choosing) to learn how PageRank works and implement a version of it on a toy example by hand (an “internet” with just a few nodes and directed links). You should understand and explain the modifications made to change the algorithm from a naive random walk and why this modifi- cation is necessary (e.g. with a directed graph, why might a random walk not correspond to a stochastic matrix?). Next, write Julia code that: takes as input a list of websites (indexed by natural numbers) and for each website a list of links; and outputs a list of ranks, one for each site. Apply your code to a few example networks. Finally, implement the HITS algo- rithm (which is a different page ranking algorithm) on your example networks and compare the results of the two algorithms. Then you might consider some extensions, such as • Explore how PageRank and HITS differ; what are the advantages and disadvantages of each algorithm? • Learn how PageRank and/or HITS can be run efficiently on a truly large graph (e.g. the full internet). What is done to make the algorithms run faster than a naive imple- mentation? • Learn about and implement successors to or variations of PageRank or HITS. • Use PageRank or some appropriate variations to analyze a large or interesting network of your choice. References • Strang (5th Edition) Chapter 7.3 (p. 386-387) • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank • How Google works: Markov chains and eigenvalues, by Rousseau (click for pdf) • Google’s PageRank and Beyond, by Langville and Meyer (ebook available through CMU library) Project 3: Spectral Clustering Background: A clustering problem seeks to group the elements of a data set into a number of groups based on some measure of similarity. Spectral clustering refers to a family of methods using eigenvalues and eigenvectors that in some situations can be more effective than other standard methods. In a spectral clustering algorithm, you should • Create a similarity graph/similarity matrix for your data using an appropriate measure of similarity. • Find the first k eigenvectors of the Laplacian or normalized Laplacian matrix, placing them in a matrix A. • Apply a standard clustering algorithm (such as k-means) to the rows (normalized if necessary) of A. • Interpret the results as clusters for your original data Project: Use the references listed below (and/or additional references of your choosing) to learn the specifics of spectral clustering. Choose a spectral clustering algorithm, write Julia code that applies it to some data sets, and interpret the results. Discuss what value(s) of k and other parameters you chose and why. Then you might consider some extensions, such as • Compare results of different spectral clustering algorithms, or algorithms with different parameters. • Compare results of spectral clustering with other standard clustering algorithms. Iden- tify characteristics of datasets where each might be superior. • Apply spectral clustering to some novel data sets. References • Spectral clustering by William Fleshman (click for link) • Spectral clustering for beginners by Amine Aoullayam (click for link) • Tutorial on spectral clustering by Ulrike von Luxburg (click for pdf) • Foundations of Data Science by Blum, Hopcroft, and Kannan, Chapter 7 (section 7.5) (ebook available through CMU library)
ELEC9731, 2025, Term 1, Take Home Exam due-Monday 05/05/2025 10:00am (Sydney time). Question 2 of this assignment should be answered analytically (by hand) without any use of computers. Questions 1 and 3 should be answered using computers and MATLAB or other suitable soft. Question 1 (15 marks, Dorfman, Bishop). Consider the control system of Fig. 12.1 of Lecture Notes with Design a PID controller to achieve (a) an acceleration error constant Ka = 2; (b) a phase margin equal to 4/π; (c) a bandwidth greater than 2.8 rad/s. Select an appropriate pre-filter and plot the response to a step input. Reminder: acceleration error constant is the constant Ka such that the steady state error to a parabolic input, r(t) = 0.5t2 is equal to K-1a. Question 2 (20 marks). Consider the following scalar discrete-time control sys-tem where x ∈ R. u ∈ R and x(0) =1. (a) Consider the following cost function Find the optimal control law and the minimal cost. (b) Consider the following cost function Find the optimal control law and the minimal cost. (c) Consider the following cost function Find the optimal control law and the minimal cost. (d) Consider the cost function from (c) and the constraint |u(k)| ≤ 1.2 for all k. Find the optimal control law and the minimal cost. Question 3 (15 marks). Consider the continuous-time linear system with the disturbance input w(t) and the measured output y(t) where the transfer function T(s) from w to y is Also, we assume that there is a measurement noise input v(t). (a) Obtain a state-space model for this system. (b) Is this system stable? (c) Assume that w(t) and i(t) are white-noise processes. Take some sensible impulsive correlation matrices Q and R and generate a Kalman filter for estimating the states of the system. (d) Generate an Ho filter to estimate the states of the system. (e) Simulate the plant and the filters from (c) and (d) for various types of w(t) and v(t), e.g. white noises, sinusoidal inputs, some other deterministic functions. Compare the performance of the filters.
University of Central FloridaSchool of Electrical Engineering & Computer ScienceCOP 3402: System SoftwareSummer 2025Homework #2 (Lexical Analyzer)(Team max. two students) Due Sunday, June 14th, 2025 by 11:59 p.m. Goal:In this assignment your team have to implement a lexical analyzer for the programming language PL/0. Your program must be capable to read in a source program written in PL/0, identify some errors, and produce, as output, the source program, the source program lexeme table, and the token list. For an example of input and output refer to Appendix A. In the next page we show you the grammar for the programming language PL/0 using the extended Backus-Naur Form (EBNF).You will use the given Context Free Grammar (see next page) to identify all symbols the programming language provides you with. These symbols are shown below:Reserved Words: const, var, procedure, call, begin, end, if, fi, then, else, while, do, read, write. Special Symbols: ‘+’, ‘-‘, ‘*’, ‘/’, ‘(‘, ‘)’, ‘=’, ’,’ , ‘.’, ‘ ’, ‘;’ , ’:’ .Identifiers: identsym = letter (letter | digit)* Numbers: numbersym = (digit)+Invisible Characters: tab, white spaces, newlineComments denoted by: /* . . . */Refer to Appendix B for a declaration of the token symbols that may be useful.In this assignment, you will not check syntax.Example1: program written in PL/0:var x, y;x := y * 2.Use these rules to read PL/0 grammar expressed in EBNF.1.- [ ] means an optional item, 2.- { } means repeat 0 or more times.3.- Terminal symbols are enclosed in quote marks.4.- Symbols without quotes are called no-terminals or a syntactic class.5.-A period is used to indicate the end of the definition of a syntactic class.6.-The symbol ‘::=’ is read as ‘is defined as’; for example, the following syntactic class:program ::= block ".". must be read as follows: a program is defined as a block followed by a dot. program ::= block ".". Context Free Grammar for PL/0 expressed in EBNF.program ::= block "." . block ::= const-declaration var-declaration proc-declaration statement. const-declaration ::= [ “const” ident "=" number {"," ident "=" number} “;"]. var-declaration ::= [ "var" ident {"," ident} “;"].proc-declaration::= {"procedure" ident ";" block ";" } .statement ::= [ ident ":=" expression| "call" ident | "begin" statement { ";" statement } "end" | "if" condition "then" statement "fi" | "if" condition "then" statement “else" statement "fi" | "while" condition "do" statement | “read” ident| “write” ident | empty ] . condition ::= expression rel-op expression. rel-op ::= "="|“"|"=“.expression ::= term { ("+"|"-") term}.term ::= factor {("*"|"/") factor}. factor ::= ident | number | "(" expression ")“.In this assignment, you will identify valid PL/0 symbols and then translate them into an internal representation called “Tokens”.Lexical Grammar for PL/0 expressed in EBNF.ident ::= letter {letter | digit}.letter ::= "a" | "b" | … | "y" | "z" | "A" | "B" | ... | "Y" | "Z".number ::= digit {digit}.digit ::= "0" | "1" | "2" | "3" | "4" | "5" | "6" | "7" | "8" | "9“.Lexical Conventions for PL/0:A numerical value is assigned to each token (internal representation) as follows: skipsym = 1, identsym = 2, numbersym = 3, plussym = 4, minussym = 5, multsym = 6, slashsym = 7, fisym = 8, eqlsym = 9, neqsym = 10, lessym = 11, leqsym = 12, gtrsym = 13, geqsym = 14, lparentsym = 15, rparentsym = 16, commasym = 17, semicolonsym = 18, periodsym = 19, becomessym = 20, beginsym = 21, endsym = 22, ifsym = 23, thensym = 24, whilesym = 25, dosym = 26, callsym = 27, constsym = 28, varsym = 29, procsym = 30, writesym = 31, readsym = 32, elsesym = 33.Example2: program written in PL/0:var w, x;read w;begin x:= 4; if w > x then w:= w + 1 else w:= x; fiendwrite w. Remember, in this assignment, you will not check syntax.For the scanner x := y + 7; and + 7 ; x y := are valid inputsConstraints:Input:1.Identifiers can be a maximum of 11 characters in length.2.Numbers can be a maximum of 5 digits in length.3.Comments should be ignored and not tokenized.4.Invisible Characters should be ignored and not tokenized.Output:1.The token separator in the output's Lexeme List (Refer to Appendix A) can be either a space or a bar ('|').2.In your output's Lexeme List, identifiers must show the token and the variable name separated by a space or bar.3.In your output's Token list, numbers must show the token and the value separated by a space or bar. The value must be transformed into ASCII Representation.4.Be consistent in output. Choose either bars or spaces and stick with them.5.The token representation of the Token list will be used in the Parser (HW3). So, PLAN FOR IT!Detect the Following Lexical Errors:1.Number too long.2.Name too long.3.Invalid symbols.When an error is detected, an error message must be printed, and the scanner continues running. For example:lexeme token type$ “Error: invalid symbol” Hint: You could create a transition diagram (DFS) to recognize each lexeme on the source program and once accepted generate the token, otherwise emit an error message. Submission Instructions:Submit to Webcourse:1. Source code. (lex.c) 2. Instructions to use the program in a readme document.3. One run containing the input file (Source Program), and output file. The output file must show: (Source, Lexeme Table(lexeme-token), Token List) When errors are found, do not print out the Token list.Appendix A:If the input is:var x, y;begin y := 3; x := y + 56;end.The output will be:Source Program:var x, y;beginToken List:29 2 x 17 2 y 18 21 2 y 20 3 3 18 2 x 20 2 y 4 3 56 18 22 19 Appendix B:Declaration of Token Types:typedef enum { skipsym = 1, identsym, numbersym, plussym, minussym,multsym, slashsym, fisym, eqsym, neqsym, lessym, leqsym,gtrsym, geqsym, lparentsym, rparentsym, commasym, semicolonsym,periodsym, becomessym, beginsym, endsym, ifsym, thensym, whilesym, dosym, callsym, constsym, varsym, procsym, writesym,readsym , elsesym} token_type;Example of Token Representation:“29 2 x 17 2 y 18 21 2 x 21 2 y 4 3 56 18 22 19”Is Equivalent:varsym identsym x commasym identsym y semicolonsym beginsym identsym xbecomessym identsym y plussym numbersym 56 semicolonsym endsym periodsymAppendix C:Example of a PL/0 program: const m = 7, n = 85; var i,x,y,z,q,r; procedure mult; var a, b; begin a := x; b := y; z := 0; while b > 0 do begin if x =1 then z := z+a fi; a := 2*a; b := b/2; end end;begin x := m; y := n; call mult;end.Find out the output for this example!Rubric:Integrity:Plagiarism or Resubmission of Old Programs: -100 pointsCompilation & Execution:Programs That Don't Compile: -100 pointsProgram Cannot Reproduce any output in the terminal: -10 pointsProgram is white-space dependent: -10 pointsFor example, a+b should be properly tokenized.For example, 4hello is two tokens: a number and an identifier.Submission Files:Missing lex.c: -100 pointsMissing readme File: -5 pointsMissing Input or Output File: -5 pointsPartial Missing: -2.5 points for either input or output fileLexical Error Detection:Not Detecting All Three Lexical Errors: -15 pointsEach lexical error detection is worth 5 points.Output Formatting:Output Significantly Unaligned with Appendix A: -5 pointsLate Submissions:One Day Late: -10 pointsTwo Days Late: -20 pointsNo email submission will be accepted. If an extension is given, Late policy does not apply.
Computer Science ΕXΑΜΙNΑΤΙΟN Semester 1 - Final, 2025 COMP4318/COMP5318 Machine Learning and Data Mining Sample exam questions Question 1. (Multiple choice question) Select the correct answer. 1. Leave-one-out cross validation is suitable for large data sets. a) True b) False 2. The regression line minimizes the sum of the residuals a) True b) False 3. A single perceptron can solve the XOR problem. True False Question 2. (Short answer question) 1. Why do we need to apply normalization when using distance-based algorithms such as k-Nearest Neighbor? 2. In linear support vector machines, we use dot products both during training and during classification of a new example. What vectors are these products of? During training: During classification of new example: 3. List one disadvantage of applying a multi-layer perceptron neural network to perform. handwritten digits image classification. 4. When we use k-Nearest Neighbor for regression tasks (the class value is numeric), how is the prediction for new examples calculated? Calculation (problem solving) questions Question 3. Decision tree Given is the following training data where location, weather and expensive are the features and holiday is the class. a) What is the entropy of this set of training examples with respect to the class? b) We would like to build a decision tree using information gain. Which attribute will be selected as a root of the tree? Show your calculations. You may use this table: Question 4. Naïve Bayes Given is the following training data where location, weather, companion and expensive are the features and holiday is the class. Use Naïve Bayes to predict the value of holiday for the following new example, showing your calculations: location=boring, weather=sunny, companion=annoying, expensive=Y. Question 5. 1R Given the training data in the table below where credit history, debt, deposit and income are attributes and risk is the class, predict the class of the following new example using the 1R algorithm: credit history=unknown, debt=low, deposit=none, income=average. If needed, settle ties by random selection. Show your calculations. Question 6. Perceptron Given is the following training set: input output ex. 1: 1 0 0 1 ex. 2: 0 1 1 0 ex. 3: 1 1 0 1 ex. 4: 1 1 1 0 ex. 5: 0 0 1 0 a) Train a perceptron with a bias on this training set. Assume that all initial weights (including the bias of the neuron) are 0. Show the set of weights (including the bias) at the end of the first epoch. Apply the examples in the given order. Recall that the perceptron uses a step function defined as: step(n) = 1, if n >= 0 = 0, otherwise. Question 7. K-means clustering Suppose that we are given 7 examples to cluster: A, B, C, D, E, F and G. The distance between them is given by the following matrix: Run the k-means algorithm to group these examples into 2 clusters for 1 epoch. The initial centroids are A and B. Show the resulting clusters. Question 8. Markov models Given is the following Markov model for the weather in Sydney: a) Given that today the weather is Sunny, what is the probability that it will be Sunny tomorrow and Rainy the day after tomorrow, i.e. what is the probability P(π3 = Rainy, π2 = Sunny| π1 = Sunny)? Hint: P(A,B|C) = P(A|B,C) P (B|C) b) If the weather yesterday was Rainy, and today is Foggy, what is the probability that tomorrow it will be Sunny? For both questions, briefly show your calculations. Question 9. Hidden Markov models Julia tested positive to COVID and had to quarantine at home for several days. Her friend Nicole came to bring her food every day. We don’t know what the weather was on the quarantine days but we know the type of clothing Nicole wore and it provides evidence about the weather. The following Hidden Markov Model models the situation. The initial state probabilities are: A0(Sunny)=0.5 and A0(Cloudy)=0.5. Suppose that on the first quarantine day Nicole wore a dress and on the second she wore a blazer. a) What is the probability of the observation sequence? b) What is the most likely sequence of hidden states? Briefly show your calculations.
Final Exam of “GR5250: Industrial Organization” Due: May 6, 2025 (by 11:59PM ET) Individual response and submission by each student; Total points: 20 points Your final exam assignment consists of a research proposal. The goal of this research proposal is to give you the opportunity to think about and thus “jump” start on working on a topic that you could “ideally” work on as a research project of yours. Please organize your research proposal such that this attempts to answer the questions listed below. Even if you do not have a fully developed idea, it is important to show that you have thought about each question seriously. Thus, if you get stuck on answering a particular question, try to describe what you got stuck on and the potential alternative solutions you considered. Please mark on your proposal where you answer for each ofthe I. through IV. starts (no need to mark down questions a, b, c etc.). Please refrain from using ChatGPTor similar tools. The graders will be subtracting 50% of the points whenever they suspect your submission is written by any LLM. The length of your research proposal cannot exceed 2 pages, single-spaced, Times New Roman with font size 11. I. Research Question [3 points] a. What is the question your research project is trying to answer? b. Why is this question interesting and important? c. Why is it important for an economist to answer this question? d. How does answering this question contribute to the existing economics literature? e. Does your question contribute to a public policy debate? II. Institutional Setting [2 points] a. What is the institutional setting your research question will focus on (e.g., a country; a certain industry; a particular market)? b. Are there papers in the economics literature that study this setting? List a couple of examples and specify the questions they examine and the setting in which they examine this question? c. Could a similar question be asked in other settings? Would your answer to your research question and the method via which you study this be applicable to other settings as well? III. Data [5 points] a. What data exists, or could be collected, to answer your question? b. Are there any specific steps you should take to collect or obtain this data? Describe these steps and methods used (e.g., experiment; scraping a website; applying/requesting from a government agency). c. Would building the dataset for your analysis require processing the raw data you collect? Will constructing this dataset involve, for instance, linking datasets or other cleaning steps? Specify these. IV. Research Design [10 points] a. Would you use a structural or a reduced form approach? Why? b. If you are using a structural model, describe the main building blocks ofthis and: i. Specify the key assumptions of the model and whether these would credibly reflect the institutional setting (i.e., empirical facts) you aim to capture by your model. ii. Specify identification assumptions, and in particular highlight those that could be the least credible or questionable, and explain how you expect these would impact your results. iii. Describe the estimation approach you would use, and how you would implement this estimation. iv. Specify the key parameters you will need to estimate. v. Describe the counterfactuals you would need to run to answer your research question. c. If you are using a reduced form. approach, describe: i. Type of the approach (e.g., IV, DiD, regression discontinuity design); ii. Identification strategy and any assumptions you need to make for this identification. iii. Estimation method used. iv. How you will calculate standard errors. v. Robustness checks. vi. Describe how you are planning to use the model and the effect you estimate through your model to answer your research questions.
KVD104: PHOTOMEDIA & ARTISTIC PRACTICE Assessment Task #1a Still Life Assessment Task #1A Task overview Assessment name: Still Life Task description: Submit a PDF document showing one page of 8 pictures (thumbnails) and 1 final Still Life image. The thumbnail pictures demonstrate your exploration of the assignment task. Your final Still Life image demonstrates your ability to select the best one and make appropriate editing choices. Due: Sunday, Week 5, 2022 submitted via Turnitin in your Blackboard site by 11:59pm Length: 8 pictures (thumbnails) and 1 final Still Life image Weighting: 20% Individual/Group: Individual Formative/Summative: Summative How you will be assessed: 7-point grading scale using a rubric Task details What you need to do: Submit 8 photographs that engage with the concepts of the genre of Still Life as explored in class and eContent (e.g Vanitas/Momento Mori and Object Study). The images may not be edited significantly. Black and white is allowed as is colour correction. The images must be taken by you this semester. How you will submit: This assessment task must: · Include only images taken by the submitting student this semester · be submitted in electronic format as an Adobe PDF document via Turnitin by following these steps: 1. Access the Turnitin Submission link >>View/Complete 2. Click on the Submit button 3. Give the submission a title, select the correct file and click the Upload. 4. Click Confirm. 5. Click Return to Assignment list 6. To check successful submission, you will receive a text match % (if this is an option), and you are able to resubmit, view or download your paper. ALWAYS check your student email for the submission receipt. Resources needed for the task: · QUT Cite|Write APA guide. · Turnitin Tip Sheets. · PS, OSX or Windows for making contact sheet What you need to submit: One PDF document that contains the following items: 1. Assignment Cover Sheet – must include: · unit code, unit name, semester and year, assignment title, student name, student number · the following statement of authorship: In submitting this work I declare that, unless otherwise acknowledged, this work is wholly my own. I understand that my work may be submitted to Turnitin and consent to this taking place. 2. A contact sheet with 8 titled images 3. A final title image selected from the contact sheet Learning outcomes measured: 1. Apply technical skills appropriate to artistic photo-imaging; 2. Employ critical reasoning to current and historical concepts in art and photography; 3. Solve conceptual problems in photomedia creatively; 4. Employ artistic inquiry in photomedia through a self-generated body of work.
WQD 7005 - 2024/2025 S2 Assignment (Due: Week 7) Objective: Perform. exploratory data analysis (EDA) and advanced data preprocessing on simulated patient data leveraging Generative AI (GenAI), Large Language Models (LLMs), and Small Language Models (SLMs). The dataset will cover six vital signs (oxygen saturation, heart rate, temperature, blood pressure, weight, and blood glucose), questionnaire responses, and timestamps. Tasks: 1. Dataset Simulation using GenAI (3 marks) o Simulate a dataset representing 500 patients monitored over 1 month. Utilize GenAI to produce realistic numerical variations in vital signs and generate plausible textual questionnaire responses or clinical notes, incorporating scenarios with missing data. 2. Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) enhanced by LLMs (4 marks) o Conduct comprehensive exploratory data analysis using visualizations and statistical summaries. o Utilize Large Language Models (e.g., GPT-4) to interpret complex patterns, automatically summarize findings, identify trends, anomalies, and provide clinically relevant insights. 3. Advanced Data Preprocessing utilizing SLMs/LLMs (4 marks) o Implement preprocessing techniques, including intelligent missing value handling, normalization, and categorical encoding. o Apply Small Language Models or fine-tuned LLMs to handle textual data preprocessing tasks, such as classifying questionnaire responses, sentiment analysis, or textual data imputation. 4. AI-Assisted Summary Report and Visualization (4 marks) o Prepare a short, insightful report (2-3 pages) summarizing findings, preprocessing techniques, and key insights from the analysis. o Leverage LLMs to draft clear, coherent explanations for visualizations and data-driven insights. Deliverables: · Jupyter notebook with clearly documented steps, code explanations, and AI-generated insights. · AI-assisted short summary report, including key visualizations and findings. Mark Schema (Total: 15 marks): · Dataset Simulation with GenAI (3 marks) · EDA with LLM-generated insights (4 marks) · Advanced Data Preprocessing using SLMs/LLMs (4 marks) · AI-assisted Summary Report and Visualization (4 marks)
Project #1 Guidelines General Information • Deadline: October 28, 11:59 pm • Work Independently: keep your do/Rmd files and your dataset private from other students. Copying and modifying another student’s code is plagiarism. • Length of the project: up to 5 pages of text, not including figures and tables • Your paper should be typed and spell-checked • Use ARIMA methods to forecast and analyze a time series of your choice o Minimum number of observations: 50 o Time series should be different from the ones used in lectures and problem sets. o The last observation should be recent and must be the most up-to-date observation available from the source. • Structure your project like a paper: o Start with a short introduction describing the data source and series you are analyzing, your motivation for choosing this series, and related literature (if relevant) o Describe the analysis you performed and the results o All the main results should be reported in tables (you cannot copy the STATA/R output – look up real papers to see how tables should look) o Write a conclusion summarizing your main findings o The quality of writing and formatting will matter for the grade Elements to include in your analysis • Plot the data; describe the patterns you see; decide whether transformation is needed. • If the data are seasonal, then it would be best to remove this component • Analyze it for stationarity • Fit several appropriate ARIMA models using the ACF, PACF, and information criteria to select an ARIMA model. • Present the parameter estimates for the best model. Do not give the estimates for the other models you tried. A table with information criteria for all fitted models is sufficient. • Investigate structural breaks • Construct a forecast (be specific about the date for which you make the forecast, and the method used for forecasting) and plot the data, together with the forecast and the 95% forecast intervals. Comment briefly on whether the forecasts seem reasonable.
