Assessment 3: Case Study Analysis COMM1100 - 2025 Term 1 In this assessment you will apply the tools and concepts you have learned and developed in the first half of the course to analyse a business case. Tutorial activities in Weeks 1-7 provided an opportunity for you to practice the skills needed to complete this assignment. The case and questions will be released at 5:00pm (AEDT) on Friday, 21 March 2025 The assessment is due at 5:00pm (AEDT) on Friday, 4 April 2025 Expected Length: Expected Length: Approximately 1,200 words, +/-10% (i.e., please aim for your submission to be between 1,080 and 1,320 words). The word count includes all tables, graphs, and figures, but does not include your reference list and in-text citations. Every 200 words in excess of the upper limit will reduce your overall assessment mark by 1. Font: Please use Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman or Roboto font, 12 point. Some other fonts are not easy for the markers to download. Format: No cover page. Please do not copy the questions into your response. Referencing style.:Harvard. You are expected to provide in-text citations and a reference list. (Law references follow a citation system called the Australian Guide to Legal Citation 4th edition and not the Harvard referencing style. However, for the purposes of this assessment, Harvard referencing is acceptable. Guidelines for referencing AI software are provided below) Weighting: 25% Submit your assessment in the 5. Submit Your Case Response Turnitin link found within the Assessment 3 tab on Moodle. Acceptable file formats: Your submission must be saved as a PDF or Word document. Save your file as [Last Name, First Name] [Your zID] Assessment 3 COMM1100. Detailed submission instructions You can find all resources and submission links you need to complete and submit your assessment under the ‘Assessment 3: Case Study Analysis’ tab in Moodle. Before opening the Case Study Brief and Detailed Instructions, you are expected to open and read theStudent Declarationregarding academic integrity. All students must complete the Generative AI questionnaire before submitting your answers. This is available under the “4. Generative AI” heading. Your submission link will not become active until you have completed this. Submit your assessment document using the Submit Your Case Response Turnitin submission link. This is available under the “5. Submit Your Case Response” heading. If you used generative AI at any stage in the planning, research and writing of yourassessment, you must submit a supplementary document (explained below) via the AI Documentation Turnitin link under the “6. AI Documentation” heading. Submission of incorrect/unreadable documents It is your responsibility to check your assessment submission. The COMM1100 team is NOT responsible for checking that you have submitted the correct document. Submitting an irrelevant document will result in a mark of 0. Submitting the correct document after the submission date will attract late penalties. Case Background At the beginning of 2025, Microsoft announced a price increase for its Microsoft 365 software package in the Australian market. Microsoft 365 – which includes commonly-used programs like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook – would become between 30% and 45% more expensive for Australian subscribers, depending on whether a personal or family subscription was being purchased. Microsoft justified the price increase as reflecting the fact that its 365 software package would now include Copilot, an AI-powered chatbot and assistant. This price increase was widely criticised by customers. Accusations of price-gouging focused on the idea that Microsoft gave its subscribers relatively short notice to either pay the increase or lose access to Microsoft 365 programs. Other users accuse Microsoft of misleading pricing, saying that the option to keep using Microsoft “Classic” – the version without Copilot and without the higher price – was only made clear to them when they tried to cancel their subscriptions. Microsoft has defended the transparency of its pricing and stated that asking customers to pay more for the 365 version that includes Copilot would enable Microsoft to keep delivering AI-powered innovations to its customers in the future. Suggested Readings https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2025/aussies-push-back-against-microsoft-365-price-hikes.html https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-25/microsoft-365-subscription-price-hike-consumer-complaints- accc/104965682 https://www.qut.edu.au/news/realfocus/microsoft-cuts-data-centre-plans-and-hikes-prices-in-push-to- make-users-carry-ai-costs Outrage over Microsoft price hike | ABC NEWS https://theconversation.com/microsoft-cuts-data-centre-plans-and-hikes-prices-in-push-to- make-users-carry-ai-costs-250932 Answer the following questions. Do not copy the questions in your response. Simply include the question number (for example, Question 1A (1) and your answer for each question. Question 1 A) In response to Microsoft’s recent price hike,one consumer complained "I just got a notification that my price will increase by around 30 per cent with less than three weeks' notice — I cannot simply adjust my entire family account in that time." Discuss the economic concept at play here and detail two other factors from the course that may influence users’ ability to adjust consumption. Suppose the marginal cost of producing a Microsoft 365 software license is $0. The table below summarises the demand for Microsoft 365. Price per Year Home Users Business Users $300 2,000 10,000 $260 3,000 12,000 $220 4,000 14,000 $180 5,000 16,000 $140 6,000 18,000 $100 7,000 20,000 Suppose Microsoft can distinguish between Home and Business users. B) How much more would Microsoft charge for a Business license than a Home license? C) What would consumer and producer surplus in the market be? Suppose Microsoft cannot distinguish between Home and Business users. D) What would consumer and producer surplus in the market be? E) Suppose the government is considering whether or not firms should be able to charge different prices for the same product. Discuss the trade-offs for this market case. Question 2 Microsoft leadership would face two primary choices: maintaining the price increase or adjusting its pricing strategy. A. Discuss how maintaining the price increase could align with the utilitarian approach, considering the potential benefits for 1) Microsoft and its future innovation, and 2) investors. B. Discuss how adjusting its pricing strategy might align with the deontological approach, emphasizing fairness and duty to stakeholders (use the Caroll's pyramid in your answer). Question 3 A. Considering the details and the facts of the subscription hike of Microsoft 365 (MS 365), one of the issues raised by the MS 365 subscribers is around fairness. What the ACCC has to demonstrate about Microsoft conduct in order for the court to consider the conduct is unconscionable under the relevant sections of the ACL. In your answer relate specifically to facts if the Microsoft case and other cases where unconscionable conduct may have been demonstrated. B. There are three requirements for a contract to be valid and enforceable, explain these requirements relating specifically to the contract between Microsoft and the MS 365 subscribers
ACF5957 Auditing and Assurance – Semester 1, 2025 Individual Assignment (20%) Due Date: 11.55 PM, Friday, 4 April 2025 Recent corporate scandals around the world have highlighted the need to define and enhance the role of auditors in responding to fraud. In response to stakeholders’ demands for enhancing the role of auditors relating to fraud, the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) proposed a significant strengthening of its standard on auditors’ responsibilities relating to fraud. The proposed revisions clarify expectations related to fraud, delineate more rigorous procedures, and improve transparency about the auditors’ duties and fraud-related procedures in the auditor’s report. The proposed revisions are intended to reduce the expectations gap and enhance the extent to which auditors are able to meet evolving public expectations as to the identification of material misstatements due to fraud. The IAASB released an exposure draft (ED) of Proposed International Standard on Auditing 240 (Revised), The Auditor’s Responsibilities Relating to Fraud in an Audit of Financial Statements and Proposed Conforming and Consequential Amendments to Other ISAs (ED- 240).1 Some of these questions include: 1. Does ED-240 reinforce the exercise of professional skepticism about matters relating to fraud in an audit of financial statements? If not, what suggestions do you have for increasing the focus on professional skepticism and why? (See Explanatory Memorandum Section 1-D, paras. 19-28; See Exposure Draft, paras 12–13 and 19–21) 2. Does ED-240 appropriately build on the foundational requirements in ISA 315 (Revised 2019)2 and other ISAs to support a more robust risk identification and assessment as it relates to fraud in an audit of financial statements? If not, what suggestions do you have for increasing the focus on risks of material misstatements and why? (See Explanatory Memorandum Section 1-F, paras. 36-46; See Exposure Draft, paras 26-42) 3. Does ED-240 appropriately enhance transparency about matters related to fraud in the auditor’s report? If not, what do you propose and why? (See Explanatory Memorandum Section 1-H, paras. 58-78; See Exposure Draft, paras 61-64). Assignment Requirements You are required to complete ALL the following questions: Please select ONE of the above questions for your assignment. Your analysis should focus only on the question you select, that is, do not cover all of the questions listed above. 1. Describe in your own words why this topic (issue) might be of concern. (4 marks, maximum 300 words) Your answer should refer to the proposed changes in ED240 (Revised) (https://ifacweb.blob.core.windows.net/publicfiles/2024-02/IAASB-Exposure-Draft- Proposed-ISA-240-Revised-Fraud.pdf) compared to the auditing standards you have learned during the semester. Your answer should also relate to why the proposed change in ED240(Revised) is relevant for a financial statement audit. 2. Refer to the submissions of comment letters by organisations (such as accounting firms, accounting professional bodies, regulatory bodies and entities), choose TWO submissions by organisations (not the individual submissions) and compare and contrast their responses/ concerns/ suggestions/ recommendations related to the topic (issue) you select from Question 1. Make sure you write down the name of the organisations clearly. See the submitted comment letters: https://www.iaasb.org/publications/proposed-international-standard- auditing-240-revised-auditor-s-responsibilities-relating-fraud-audit (5 marks, maximum 400 words) 3. Identify TWO academic journal articles relating to the topic covered by the question. Provide a succinct summary of both articles. Explain if the findings ofthe articles support/ refute the discussion about the potential effectiveness of the proposed change. (6 marks, maximum 500 words) The answer should reference at least 2 peer-reviewed articles from A*/ A ranked accounting journals according to the ABDC rankings published within the last 5 years. Access to the journal rankings can be found from the following link: https://abdc.edu.au/research/abdc- journal-quality-list/ 4. Provide potential suggestions to better implement or improve the implementation of the recommendation in the Australian audit context, with an example. (3 marks, maximum 200 words) In answering this question, avoid repeating recommendations proposed by the comment letters by organisations in Question 2 and the journal articles selected in Question 3 above. Recommendations will be assessed on their practicality. Overall: Writing Style, Clarity & Structure (2 marks) Submission Guidelines • The assignment must include appropriate referencing. Information sources and references should be stated clearly in-text and in the reference list. • Al tools may be used to aid with the completion of the task, assisting with brainstorming, generating ideas, and proofreading, but the work submitted must be the original thought and the effort. Inappropriate AI use and/or AI use without acknowledgement will be considered a breach of academic integrity. If you use AI tools, you need to include a separate acknowledgement (not included in the word count) detailing how Al was used in the process. • No restriction on your style. However, clear presentation and communication are expected. • Words limit: 10% allowance exceeding the maximum word limit for each question, not including references. • The PDF or Word document submission must be in 12 font-size, Times New Roman, 1.5 spacing, and 1-inch page margins. • No cover sheet is required. Student name, ID and tutorial class should be indicated on top of every page. • Your submission should be your (original) work and succinct. Any plagiarism or direct copy/paste from any materials will be severely penalised. Moodle (Turn-it-in) will not only compare your submission to those of your peers but also to the materials on which the assignment is directly based. Assignment Submission • Please submit a softcopy (PDF only) via Moodle. Further details will be disclosed in the Moodle page. Submission Deadline • 4 April 2025 (Friday), 11.55 pm. • The penalty for late submission is 5% per business day late with no assignment to be accepted seven business days after the due date.
ECON1064 – Forecasting and Quantitative Analysis Assessment 3: Final Assessment Instructions: This assignment is to be completed individually. It involves analysing data, estimating forecasting models, carrying our appropriate tests, comparing models on the basis of accuracy measures and interpreting results. Submission: Via Assignments folder in Canvas. Marks: The assessment is worth 40 marks and accounts for 40% of the total grade for this course. Academic integrity: This is an individual piece of assessment. Submission will be verified via Turnitin for any form. of plagiarism. The assessment should contain your own work and you can’t copy or have someone else complete any part of the work for you. By submitting this assessment, you are declaring that you have read, understood and you agree to the content and expectations of the Assessment declaration: https://www.rmit.edu.au/students/my-course/assessment-results/assessment Presentation Instructions: You will submit two files: 1) An R file with all the codes, clearly presented. Your code should run without errors. 2) A Word (.doc or .docx) or PDF (.pdf) file where you will answer the questions in the order that they have been asked. Your document should comply with the following presentation standards: a) Typed using a standard professional font type. Font “Arial” size 11 is recommended. b) Pages should be numbered. c) Label your answer to each question clearly – e.g., Question 1 a. d) Graphs and tables should be clearly labelled and presented. e) Your work should be well-presented with no spelling, typographical and grammatical errors. f) Answer the questions in a new Word document. DO NOT copy the questions as this will affect your Turnitin score. Three files are available to you on Canvas: 1. Tourist_data.xls 2. My_data_SIM.xls 3. Final Assessment.R The Tourist_data.xls dataset contains the number of short-term visitors arriving in Australia from selected countries between January 1991 and December 2019. The data is sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/tourism-and- transport/overseas-arrivals-and-departures-australia/latest-release#data-downloads). Your task is to analyse the data, generate forecasts, conduct relevant tests, perform. diagnostic analyses, and produce accuracy measures to compare different models. R codes (5 marks): A template, Final Assessment.R is provided. It includes codes for reading the data. You will first locate the Country ID (a unique identifier for each country in tourist_data.xls) that corresponds to your student ID in My_data_SIM.xls. You will then enter this Country ID into the R file to extract data for your assigned country. You will save your R template as FamilyName_StudentID.R. To score well, 1. ensure the code runs smoothly in a single execution. 2. clearly present your code, labelling responses appropriately (e.g., Question 1, Question 2 etc). 3. include comments where necessary, to document your work and provide clarifications. Part A (17 marks): The aim in this part ofthe assignment is to understand the data, perform transformation (if required), and use simple forecasting models to produce forecasts. Question 1 Produce appropriate plots in order to become familiar with your data. Make sure you label your axes and plots appropriately. Comment on the plots. What do you see? (50 words per plot). (5 marks) Question 2 Would transforming your data be useful? If required, compare two transformations graphically. Choose the best transformation, justifying your choice (100 words). (3 marks) Question 3 Apply the two most appropriate benchmark (simple forecasting) methods, justifying your choices (100 words). (2 marks) Question 4 Perform. a thorough residual analysis for each model. Do the residuals appear to be white noise? (100 words). (3 marks) Question 5 Generate and plot forecasts and forecast intervals for the next 2 years from the two benchmark methods, also plotting the observed data. You may choose to plot on a shorter period of say 5 last years for clearer visualisation. Compare and discuss your findings, commenting on the merits/limitations of either or both modelling approaches (100 words). (4 marks) Part B (10 marks): The aim in this part ofthe assignment is to build an ARIMA model and use it to forecast. Question 6 Visually inspect your transformed data and decide what differencing is required to achieve stationarity. Analyse using relevant plots at every step, commenting on each plot and justifying your actions. (50 words per plot). (3 marks) Question 7 Estimate an ARIMA model using the auto-ARIMA function in R. Tabulate your results. (1 mark) Question 8 Perform. a thorough residual diagnostics analysis for your estimated model. Discuss your results. (100 words) (3 marks). Question 9 Generate and plot forecasts and forecast intervals for the next two years. Comment on the results (50 words). (3 marks) Part C (8 marks): You have now built three models with your dataset. Nest, the aim is to evaluate the three models. Question 10 Create a training set with your data by leaving two years’worth of observations as the test set. (1 mark) Question 11 Generate forecasts for the last two years (the period of the test set), from the three models you have estimated in Parts A (two benchmark models) & B (ARIMA model). Plot the forecasts (both point forecasts and prediction intervals) together with the observed data and comment on these (100 words). You may choose to plot on a shorter period of say 5 last years for clearer visualisation. (4 marks) Question 12 Compute the accuracy of your forecasts generated from the three model in a table. Which model does best and why? (50 words). (3 marks)
25883 AI-driven Compliance, Anomaly and Fraud Detection 2025 Assessment Task 1 Submission This assessment must be completed in a group of up to two students. At the top of your Jupyter Notebook, include the full names and student IDs of both group members. Only one submission per group is required — please ensure that only one member uploads the assignment, not both. Please submit your answers by midnight (11:59pm) on Friday, 11th April 2025 via Canvas only. A late penalty of 5% per day for submissions up to 7 calendar days late will be subtracted from the mark (a maximum of 35% penalty). Work submitted after 7 calendar days (on the 8th day or later) will not be marked and the assessment will attract a zero (0) mark. Your submission should constitute a single Jupyter Notebook with your code, visualisations, and explanations summarising your methodology, findings, and insights using Jupyter’s markup functionality. Clearly identify the parts of the project by sectioning (e.g., using markup section # Question 1, # Question 2, etc...). You do not need to upload any data files to Canvas. Your code should either: • Download data directly from online sources (e.g., using yfinance), or • Read from the external data files provided (e.g., the earnings call transcripts available on the subject GitHub page). Make sure your code clearly shows how the data is loaded, so it can be run and reproduced without manual file uploads. Note: Code that does not compile or produces errors during execution may result in a significant loss of marks, so be sure to test your notebook before submission. Using GenAIto Support Your Coding You are encouraged to use Generative AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Claude, or GitHub Copilot) to assist with your coding in this assignment. These tools can help explain unfamiliar code, suggest improvements, or help troubleshoot errors. You may also copy and paste the sample code provided in class or on GitHub into a GenAI tool to better understand how it works or adapt it to your own analysis. Best practices for using GenAI include: • Ask specific, well-formed questions (e.g., "How do I detect anomalies in time series using Isolation Forest?") • Use GenAI to clarify errors or unfamiliar code blocks, rather than blindly copying outputs • Test and validate any code suggestions before integrating them into your notebook Always understand and explain the code you submit—your ability to interpret and justify your work will be part of your assessment. Remember, GenAI is a powerful support tool, not a replacement for your own reasoning, learning, and interpretation. Marking The final page of this document contains the assessment rubric, which outlines how your work will be evaluated. Submissions will be ranked, with the strongest projects placed at the top of the pile. This means your grade is relative to the quality and creativity of other submissions — so aim high and demonstrate your best work. Good luck — I’m looking forward to seeing your ideas in action! Question 1: Anomaly Detection in Financial Time Series Objective: Your task is to design and implement an anomaly detection approach using Python and historical financial time-series data retrieved from the yfinance library. Focus on price, returns, and volume series, or any derived financial indicators (e.g., volatility). Your goal is to uncover unusual or abnormal patterns, such as structural breaks, outliers, regime shifts, or behaviour inconsistent with typical market dynamics. This is an open-ended empirical task, and you are encouraged to be innovative. There is no single correct approach — submissions will be ranked relative to peers or peer groups based on originality, correctness, insights, and overall quality of presentation. Instructions • Use the yfinance package to download time-series data for GameStop from 1 Jan 2020 to 1 Jan 2025. • Define what constitutes an “anomaly” in your context (e.g., price spikes, return outliers, structural breaks, volatility bursts, etc). • Select and apply appropriate anomaly detection techniques in Python, such as: o Statistical methods (e.g., z-score, rolling quantiles, change-point detection) o Clustering-based or distance-based approaches (e.g., k-means, DBSCAN) o Machine learning models (e.g., Isolation Forest, One-Class SVM) • Repeat the steps above for another asset of your choosing (e.g., stocks, indices, ETFs). • Explain and justify your method selection and implementation. • Visualise and interpret the anomalies you detect. What do they reveal? Are they associated with market events or structural changes? Question 2: NLP-based Analysis of Financial Text Data Objective: Your task is to design and implement a Natural Language Processing (NLP) workflow to extract and analyse insights from a set of earnings call transcripts. The goal is to automate the summary of the text, detect patterns and irregularities, or strategic signals embedded in financial language, and explore their possible links to compliance issues, market impact, or irregular firm behaviour. This is an open-ended and exploratory exercise — you are free to define your own approach, provided it is grounded in appropriate NLP methodology and produces insightful, reproducible results. Submissions will be ranked relative to peers or peer groups based on originality, correctness, insights, and overall clarity of presentation. Instructions • You are provided with a sample of earnings call transcripts in the file: o dataEarningsCallTranscript_SingleCompany.txt (available via the subject GitHub page). o The transcript. consists of two parts: formal remarks prepared by the senior team and highly scripted and the Q&A section, which is often unexpected and can be surprising to organisers. • Define a problem or pattern of interest relevant to the objective. Example questions you might explore: o Do you detect certain linguistic signals or sentiment shifts between scripted and Q&A sections? o Is there any certain topic avoidance? o Can topics, tone, or complexity of language signal risk, manipulation, or stress? • Apply appropriate NLP techniques to extract and analyse insights. These may include: o Text cleaning, tokenisation, and vectorisation (e.g., TF-IDF, embeddings) o Sentiment analysis (e.g., lexicon-based or transformer models) o Topic modelling (e.g., BERTopic, LDA) o Semantic similarity and clustering • Present your findings using clear visualisations and articulate the value of the insights. Empirical Assignment Rubric Criteria Excellent (Top Quartile) Proficient (Second Quartile) Satisfactory (Third Quartile) Needs Improvement (Bottom Quartile) 1. Originality and Innovative and well-reasoned Sound and appropriate Approach is standard or Weak or unclear approach. Soundness of approach. Clearly defines the approach. Clear problem partially justified. Problem Poor alignment between Approach problem, justifies chosen methods, and may extend beyond taught material. Demonstrates strong understanding of the data and domain. definition with reasonable method choices. Mostly builds on techniques taught in class. Methods are appropriate with some depth or customisation. framing may be vague or overly reliant on basic techniques without clear adaptation. Methods are appropriate but lack depth or customisation. problem and method. Lacks justification or shows misunderstanding of key concepts. 2. Correctness and Code is correct, well- Code is mostly correct Code runs but contains Code is incorrect, does not Clarity of structured, readable, and fully and functional with minor inefficiencies or run properly, or lacks clear Implementation reproducible. Methods are implemented as intended with good use of programming practices. issues. Implementation is understandable and logically structured. inconsistencies. Some parts may be difficult to follow or not well explained. structure and documentation. Major conceptual or technical errors present. 3. Insightfulness of Provides rich, critical analysis Interprets results Basic interpretation of Findings are poorly Findings of the results. Interprets findings clearly and connects them to broader financial or compliance context. Demonstrates depth of thought. appropriately. Connects findings to context but lacks depth in critical reflection. results. Insights are shallow or descriptive with minimal contextual linkage. interpreted or missing. Analysis lacks relevance, depth, or rigour. 4. Coherence and Discourse and notebook are Structure is mostly clear Structure is uneven or Poorly organised or hard to Quality of well-organised, visually clear, and logical. Visuals are unclear. Visuals may be follow. Visuals missing, Presentation and easy to follow. Visualisations are well- designed and support the narrative effectively. helpful but could be more polished or better integrated. present but lack clarity, context, or labelling. confusing, or irrelevant. Overall presentation quality is low.
A2: REST API Backend · Due Sunday by 11:59p.m. · Points 280 Objective In this assignment, you will build a REST API backend for a loyalty program using Express.js and Prisma. This loyalty program will enable users to accumulate points for purchases and redeem them for free items, similar to Tim Hortons Rewards and PC Optimum. The objective is to develop the backend infrastructure for the loyalty program, which will serve as the foundation for your term project. In the term project, you and your teammates will build and deploy the frontend for this web application. Overview You will create a REST API that supports the following functionalities: 1. User Roles 。Regular Users: Can accumulate and redeem points, view their points balance and transaction history, and manage their account. 。 Cashiers: Can add transactions for users. The system can flag a cashier as suspicious when it detects anomalous activities. 。Managers: Responsible for verifying new user accounts and managing transactions, events, and promotions, in addition to performing cashier duties. 。 Superusers: Have full database access and all privileges, including those of managers and cashiers. 2. User Registration and Authentication 。Cashier can create an account for a User. 。 Users can log in and log out. 。 Users can update their account details and password. 。 Users must activate their account upon registration. 。 Users can reset their password if they forget it. 。 Users cannot redeem points until their student information is verified by a Manager. 。 Users can transfer their points to another user. 。 User cannot delete their accounts, to ensure accountability in case of misuse. 3. User Management 。 Managers can promote a user to a cashier role or revoke their cashier status. 。 Managers can clear a cashier who is flagged as suspicious. 。Superusers can promote a user to a manager role or demote them back to a regular user. 4. Transaction Logging and Management 。Once created, transactions cannot be deleted. 。The following types of transactions are supported: Purchase: created by cashiers on behalf of a customer during checkout. The dollar amount spent is entered, and the customer will receive, by default, 1 point for every 25 cents spent. Transactions created by a suspicious cashier will require verification by a manager before points are awarded. Adjustment: created by managers to manually correct any errors (or misuse) relating to a previously made transaction. Redemption: created by the customer themselves. Once created, a cashier will process the redemption at a rate of 1 cent per point redeemed. For example, if the customer redeems 100 points, then $1 will be taken off the subtotal of their purchase. Transfer: created by a user to transfer points to another user. Event: created by an event organizer to award points to guests for their participation. 。 Managers can view all transactions, for auditing purposes. 。 Users can view their past transactions, including date, transaction total, points earned or redeemed, and any promotions applied. 5. Point-Earning Events 。 Managers can create events and assign organizers to them. 。 Events include details such as start and end times, description, location, capacity, and the ability to RSVP users. 。 Managers allocate a set number of points for each event, which organizers can distribute to attendees. 。Only users who RSVP and have their attendance confirmed can receive points from the event. 。Organizers cannot also be guests at the same time, to prevent organizers from awarding points to themselves. 。Organizers can update all event details except for adding/removing organizers and deleting the event. 6. Promotions 。 Managers can create promotional periods that offer increased points per amount spent, with an optional minimum spending requirement. 。 Managers can create promotional offers, such as "buy one, get extra points." These offers are single-use for each user and must be manually applied by a cashier during checkout when the specified conditions are met. 。 Managers can monitor and adjust promotions as needed.
ACF5950 Assessment 2 - Practical assignment (18%) Due Date: Wednesday 7 May 2025 11.55pm (Melbourne time) Details of Task: Each student's assignment will contain a unique series of business transactions (for the month of June 2024) generated by a computer program. Each assignment is numbered, with a record being kept of which numbered assignment you receive. You will receive your assignment via email and to receive this email you must be officially enrolled in this unit. If you have not received your assignment by Monday 31 March 2025 11pm, or if you are late to enrol, please contact the Chief Examiner, Chenlan Song ([email protected]), as soon as possible to receive your assignment. Please note that it is the students' responsibility to ensure that they liaise with the Chief Examiner if they have not received the assignment. A few things to note regarding the assignment: • The business was purchased on 1 June 2024. • Use straight-line depreciation method • Round your calculations to the nearest dollar This assessment consists of 2 parts: Part 1. Excel component (13%) Using the unique series of business transactions (data) students are required to: Manually record the transactions through the general journal and general ledger, prepare balance day adjustments, closing entries, financial statements , and a worksheet. In your Excel component submission, you must include the following: • A completed 10-column worksheet • properly classified income statement for the month ended 30 June 2024 (prepared manually using Excel) • properly classified balance sheet as at 30 June 2024 (prepared manually using Excel) Marking allocation for the Excel component is as follows: Component Marks 10-column worksheet 6 Income statement (excel) 3 Balance sheet (excel) 4 Total 13 Submission details: You are required to submit your assignment through the 'Assessment 2 - excel component submission (13%)' link on Moodle site by Wednesday 7 May 2025 at 11.55pm Melbourne time. The file submitted needs to be in an excel format (.xls or .xlsx). Penalties for late lodgement: Penalties for late lodgement: The University has a standard penalty for late submission. See the Marking and Feedback Procedure for more information. Applications for extension of time: Applications for an extension of time allocated to an assessment task must be made by completing the application form found at URL:https://connect- forms.apps.monash.edu/students/special-consideration/. Part 2. MYOB component (5%) Students are required to enter the same set of unique business transactions into the accounting software package MYOB. In your MYOB component submission, you must include the following reports generated using MYOB: • journal entries (prepared using MYOB) • trial balance (prepared using MYOB) • properly classified income statement for the month ended 30 June 2024 (prepared using MYOB) • properly classified balance sheet as at 30 June 2024 (prepared using MYOB) A few things to note regarding the MYOB component: • Students can access MYOB Business software (free 6-month trial) here: https://www.myob.com/au/students/education-trial • Please ignore GST in all transactions • To generate the relevant reports, you need to click Reporting → Reports and then select the relevant report to be exported as PDF. In relation to the journal entries, please ensure that you click 'Expand all' before exporting the entries to a PDF file. • We will provide more information related to the MYOB software on Moodle in due course Marking allocation for the MYOB component is as follows: Component Marks Journal entries (MYOB) 1.5 Trial balance (MYOB) 1.5 Income statement (MYOB) 1 Balance sheet (MYOB) 1 Total 5 Submission details: You are required to submit your assignment through the 'Assessment 2 - MYOB component submission (5%)' link on Moodle site by Wednesday 7 May 2025 at 11.55pm Melbourne time. The file(s) submitted needs to be the actual output generated using MYOB in a pdf format (.pdf) .
MKTG3528 Marketing Analytics Individual Assignment 3, due March 22 before class Assignment Description: Please import the data file: assign3.xlsx into your Tableau and re-create the two figures given below. Your final submission should include 1) a png file and 2) twb file generated from a dashboard include your information and two figures, and 3) a word document describing the process of creating the two figures (bullet points). Please note that, in 3), if your step involves calculation, please also write down your equation used in Tableau, and indicate the variable name created by this equation. Figure 1 Requirements: 1. Group “CarType” so that “A”, “A0”, and “A00” are all categorized as “A”. 2. Plot a bar chart with “Made” and the grouped “Cartype” in columns and average “Posted Price” in rows. 3. Filter out CarType as “NA”, i.e., exclude the observations with “NA” in CarType. 4. Use Filter to only focus on Sale Type==”B2C”. 5. Add a reference line per cell (black dashed line) to reflect the average “Posted Price” for both B2C and C2C cars, and the reference line should be added to each cell (i.e., by “Made” and grouped “Cartype”). Hints: use {FIXED[Made],[Cartype (group)]: ….} to create the variable 6. Add a reference band per cell to reflect the maximum and minimum of “Posted Price” (grey area in the figure). 7. Colored the bar to differentiate if the bar exceeds the average “posted price” (dashed line) and bar falls below the average “posted price” (dashed line). Hints: use IF AVG([Posted Price])>=AVG([variable created in step 5]). Figure 1: Figure 2 Requirement: 1. Plot a line chart with “Post Date” (Year-Month) as Columns and count number as Rows. 2. Display the average day lasted for car listings in each month, with 2 decimals. Hints: calculate the day lasted using “sold date” minus “post date”. 3. Filter out/exclude observations with “post date” earlier than Aug 2015. 4. Create a variable “soldrate”=number of sold/number of listings hints: use AVG([sold]) 5. Create an indicator variable “highlow” so that if soldrate of the specific month is higher than population average returns “high” and “low” otherwise. hints: use WINDOW_AVG([soldrate]) to represent the population average 6. Use the indicator “highlow” to differentiate the month where the sold rate is higher than population average and higher than population average by both shape and color. Figure 2: Present your final results using a dashboard: following the format below: Title of the dashboard, Your name and UID, title of the figure, floating legends, export as both PDF and twb.
Machine Learning for Causal Inference (Due date: April 1, 1:00 pm) Background The data for this module come from Keller et al. (2024) on mathematics and vocabulary training sessions. You can find a description of the data here: https://osf.io/preprints/osf/2gur9_v1 This is the same dataset you used in previous problem sets, named WSCdata.Rdata. Please construct a dataset from a quasi-experiment where participants self-select their preferred treatment by selecting participants’ randomly assignment status, mathGrp, matches their self-selected treatment status, mathSel. You can use the following R code to do this: library(tidyverse) dat % filter(mathGrp == mathSel) Assignment: From the lecture on ML for causal inference, we discussed several questions we can explore when studying heterogeneous treatment effects. These are: a) Is there any effect heterogeneity at all? b) Which covariates modify the treatment effect? c) What is the expected treatment effect among subgroups with specific covariate values? Your task is to apply each estimation method discussed in class to the WSCdata dataset, to address the three questions. The write-up should not exceed 3 pages, including plots and code. 1. Use a parametric, linear interaction model to answer questions (a), (b), and (c). Include plot(s) and/or formal test results to support your answers. Also, include your R code for fitting models and conducting formal tests. You don’t need to include code for plotting. (3 pts) 2. Use BART to answer questions (a), (b), and (c). Include plot(s) and/or formal test results. Include your R code. (3 pts) 3. Use causal forests to answer questions (a), (b), and (c). Include plot(s) and/or formal test results. Include your R code. (3 pts) 4. Are your findings similar or different across the three estimation methods? Which method do you prefer, and why? (1 pt)
MOS 4465B – HAND-IN ASSIGNMENT Winter 2025 This assignment is worth 15% of your final mark. It is due by 11:59 pm Saturday April 5, 2025 (please submit through OWL Brightspace Assessments). For this assignment, you are permitted to work in teams of two students. Assignment may also be completed individually. Nature of the Assignment: Select two public companies who have undertaken an acquisition of a subsidiary within the past seven years (2017or later). Use publicly-available information on the companies, such as annual and quarterly reports, company websites, and investor presentations to research the impact of the acquisitions on both the companies’ financial statements and on their underlying business. The target word length of the paper is 3,000-5,000 words (excluding exhibits). Your paper should cite all sources used (Bibliography, end notes). Please attach copies of relevant extracts of materials used (e.g. relevant pages from annual reports). The paper should include a discussion of the following for each of the two companies selected. Details of company acquired (10 marks) – 5 marks each · Purchase consideration (amount and nature) · % ownership acquired · Date of acquisition · Was the acquisition done in multiple steps or all at one time? Allocation of acquisition differential (10 marks) 5 marks each · What was the amount of the acquisition differential? · What was it allocated to? · How is it being amortized? · Have there been any goodwill impairment losses or other acquired asset impairment losses reported since the acquisition? Accounting Policies (10 marks) – 5 marks each · GAAP followed by the company (ASPE, IFRS ,US , Other) · What does the company disclose regarding its accounting policies for investments in subsidiaries and other investees? · What disclosures has the company provided regarding the timing and expected impact on their financial statements of conversion to IFRS , if applicable or use of global accounting policies (non-Canadian companies) Impact of Acquisition on Financial Statements: (20 marks) – 10 marks each · Impact on balance sheet in year of acquisition · Impact on income statement in year of acquisition · Impact on cash flow statement in year of acquisition · Has the acquisition impacted the company’s exposure to foreign currencies (e.g. revenues/expense streams in foreign currencies, investment in foreign operation)? Note Disclosures on Acquisition: (10 marks) – 5 marks each · Do note disclosures pertaining to the acquisition meet Handbook disclosure requirements for business combinations? · Have pro-forma financial statements been provided? Strategic Rationale for the Acquisition: (20 marks) – 10 marks each · Reason why company was acquired · Likely impact on future operations and profitability of company Conclusion: (25 marks) Your paper should conclude with a comparison of the acquisitions made by each company to one another. This should include the following points: · Which company’s acquisition is likely to have the most significant impact on the consolidated entity (e.g. size, scope of operations)? · Has one company provided better quality financial statement information regarding the acquisition than the other? · Which company’s acquisition do you believe is more likely to create value for the shareholders of the parent company / acquired company? To support your analysis and conclusion, your exhibits should include the following: (1) vertical common-size income statement and balance sheet for the year/period before the acquisition and the year/period after acquisition (2) horizontal common-size income statement and balance sheet for the year/period before the acquisition and the year/period after acquisition (3) A minimum of 3 select ratios for the year/period before the acquisition and the year/period after acquisition (up to a 5 year period)
CIT 594 Solo Project An Exercise in Software Design Planning and design are key to successfully building complex software; these are the focus of this assignment. You will apply the design principles and design patterns that we recently covered in class to develop, from scratch, a Java application that reads text files as input and analyzes the contents. This assignment is a significant level-up from previous assignments. You will not just be plugging code into an application structure that has been supplied to you. Instead, you will have to use the skills you have been learning all semester to design both the full structure of the application and the individual functions to perform its specific tasks. This is a much more time-consuming project than those you have encountered previously, so please get started early and plan your time accordingly. Because of the centrality of design in this assignment, design will also be a large part of your grade. A perfectly organized submission that fails to compile will receive more points than a submission that works perfectly but violates all of the specified design objectives. The good news is that much of the design work you do in this project will be directly reusable in the next assignment, your final group project. You must complete the current assignment by yourself, but doing your best work now will give you a head start when you begin to work with your assigned team. Learning Objectives In completing this assignment, you will learn how to: • Design a software system using an N-tier architecture • Design software using the principles of modularity, functional independence, and abstraction • Apply the Singleton design pattern • Use a Java library to read data stored in a JSON file Background Government agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control can use social media information to get an understanding of the spread of infectious disease. By analyzing the use of words and expressions that appear over time on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, etc., it is possible to estimate where the disease is affecting people and whether it is spreading or appears to be contained. In this assignment, you will design and develop an application that analyzes a small set of Twitter data to look for tweets regarding occurrences of the flu and determines the US states in which these tweets occur. Information about the format of the input data, the functional specification of the application, and the way in which it should be designed follows below. Please be sure to read all the way through before you start programming! Input Data Format Your analytical dataset is a collection of potentially flu-related tweets, with some metadata for each. At a minimum, each tweet record will contain the tweet text, the tweet date, and the tweet location in latitude/longitude format. Additional metadata may also be present, but is not needed for your analysis. Some tweet records may appear in the dataset multiple times with identical data. You should analyze, count, and log each appearance independently, and not worry about trying to detect duplicate tweets. Tweet records will be provided in two different formats: a tab-separated text file and a JSON file. Your program will need to automatically select the appropriate parser for a given file based on its type. You may infer the format of a file from its file name extension (the portion of the file name following the last “.”). Note that the provided “flu tweets.txt” and “flu tweets.json” files both contain the same set of tweets, just in different formats and with slightly different extraneous metadata. Tweets: Tab-Separated The tab-separated values file for this assignment has “.txt” as its file extension. Each line of the file contains the data for a single tweet. The following is an example of the data for a single tweet: [41.38, -81 .49] 6 2019-01-28 19:02:28 Yay, homework! The line contains four tab-separated (“t”) fields: 1. Location: the geographical coordinates [latitude, longitude] of the point of origin of the tweet. This field is demarcated by square brackets (“[]”) and the latitude and longitude are separated by a comma and a space (“, ”): “[41.38, -81.49]” 2. An identifier used by the collector of the tweets. (“6” in this example.) This field can be ignored for our purposes. 3. The date of the tweet in YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss format. (“2019-01-28 19:02:28” in this example.) We will also ignore this field. 4. The text of the tweet: “Yay, homework!” Tweets: JSON JSON (“JavaScript Object Notation”) is a popular standard for exchanging data on the World Wide Web. For details see: ECMA-404 and rfc8259. In this assignment and elsewhere, JSON files use the “.json” extension. In brief, JSON files are human-readable text files which encode data in JavaScript syntax (which is also similar to Python syntax). Permissible atomic values are strings, numbers, or one of true, false, or null. All other data is encoded in one of two composite types: “object” and “array”. JSON objects are effectively maps written in the same syntax as Python dicts: curly braces (“{}”) surrounding comma separated key:value pairs. Arrays are represented as square brackets (“[]”) enclosing a series of comma separated values, like Python lists. In general, JSON allows for arbitrary nesting of composite types. The JSON tweets file contains an array of tweet objects. In JSON, the example tweet above might look something like: { "location": [41.38, -81.49], "identifier": 6, "time": "2019-01-28 19:02:28", "text": "Yay, homework!" } Note that if you open the provided JSON tweet archive in a text editor (which you should do to familiarize yourself with its structure), you may see that the JSON tweet objects contain additional fields beyond the ones that we are using, that certain unused fields are missing, or that the fields are in a different order from the example given above. This should not affect your work on this assignment, as you are not expected to attempt to manually parse the JSON from the file text. Instead, you will read in the files using a standard JSON processing library, and work with the resulting data structures. There are numerous Java libraries for reading JSON objects, and numerous tutorials on how to use them. For this assignment, we’re going to be using the JSON.simple library. Use the provided json-simple-1.1.1.jar from the starter files; add it to your project’s build path. A tutorial for this library is available here. Do not put the jar file in your src or bin directories, and do not unpack it. Jars are meant to be used directly. To repeat: Do not attempt to write your own code to parse the JSON file! It would be extremely time-consuming to get all the details right, and would take you far afield from the focus of this assignment. Only process the JSON file using the provided JSON.simple library. States In order to determine the state from which each tweet originated, your program will also need to read a file that contains the latitude and longitude of the center of each of the 50 US states, plus Washington DC, in comma-separated format. Each line of the file contains the data for a single state and contains the name of the state, the latitude, and the longitude. Here is an example: Alabama,32.7396323,-86 .8434593 Provided Files Your program will be evaluated using the following input files: • a set of 10,000 tweets in tab-separated format (flu tweets.txt) • the same 10,000 tweets in JSON format (flu tweets.json) • a CSV file listing the centers of the 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. (states.csv) Download the three input files along with json-simple-1.1.1.jar and add them to your project’s root directory so that you can test your program. Identical copies of those files will be used as part of the functional evaluation of your submission. You should, of course, create your own input files for testing. Functional Specifications This section describes the specification that your program must follow. Some parts may be under- specified; you are free to interpret those parts any way you like, within reason, but you should ask a member of the instruction staff if you feel that something needs to be clarified. Your program must be written in Java. As with previous assignments, you should use Java 11 for this project since this is the level used by Codio. Your code must not make use of external libraries that are not part of the standard Java 11 API other than the provided JSON.simple library. Do not configure a module for your project (even if your IDE recommends doing so). It’s possible your IDE might generate a module-info.java file even without prompting you; we recommend deleting this. Runtime arguments The runtime arguments to the program should specify, in this order: • the name of the tweets input file • the name of the states input file • the name of the log file (for logging debug information; see “Logging” below) For example: flu tweets.json states .csv log .txt Do not prompt the user for this information! These should be specified when the program is started (e.g. from the command line or using a Run Configuration in your IDE). If you do not know how to do this, please see the documentation here. The program should display an error message and immediately terminate upon any of the following conditions: • the number of arguments is incorrect • the tweets file does not match (case-insensitive) a recognized extension (“.json” or “.txt”) • the specified tweets file or states file does not exist or cannot be opened for reading (e.g. because of file permissions); take a look at the documentation for the java.io.File class if you don’t know how to determine this • your program cannot create/open the specified log file for writing For simplicity, you may assume that the tweets file and states file are well-formed according to the specified formats, assuming they exist and can be opened. You can also assume that the format is correctly labeled if the file name includes a valid extension. These are pretty big assumptions but will greatly simplify this assignment! Note: If the designated log file does not exist, it should be created, and if it does exist, it should be opened in append mode instead of overwriting the existing file. (Consult the FileWriter docs to get the parameters correct.) Identifying relevant tweets The goal of our tweet analysis is to track spread of the flu. To that end, you must identify the tweets that discuss the disease. After identifying the flu tweets, your program should match the locations of these tweets to states and print out the number of flu tweets in each state (but only for those states that had any flu tweets at all). A tweet is considered to be a flu tweet if the text contains one or more flu words or hashtags. For this assignment, we’ll simplify the notion of a hashtag to the same thing as a word with a “#” in front (i.e. “#flu” is hashtag and “flu” is not). A valid flu word or hashtag satisfies the following criteria: • The word must start with “flu” (or “#flu” for a hashtag). None of “influence”, “influenza”, and “!flu” are flu words, for our purposes. • If there are any characters following “flu”, the next character must not be a letter, but any other following string does not invalidate the word. “fluent” is not a valid flu word, but“flu2020” is, as is “flu4me&u”. • Matching should be case-insensitive, as in our sensitivity analysis earlier in the semester. “flu”, “FLU”, “Flu”, and “fLu” are all valid flu words. • A flu hashtag is a flu word with a single ‘#’ in front of it. Hint: Skim the regular expression documentation in java.util .regex.Pattern. There are meth- ods in Pattern and Matcher that can make this quite easy if used correctly. Some example tweet classifications, note this does not cover all cases to consider: Text Flu tweet? I feel like I have the flu and I hate it Yes Flu symptoms are the worst Yes I definitely have the flu Yes I think I have the #flu I’m so sick Yes How would I know if I have the flu? Yes Five days I’ve had the flu! so sad Yes That bunny is so fluffy I wanna squeeze it No Don’t be influenced by fake news No ugh, I got #fluvid-19, shoulda taken the vax. No so sick with the #flue gonna go home now No Although a real-world implementation would arguably want to identify the last example as a flu tweet, you should not do so for the purposes of this assignment. Please do not spend too much time worrying about what is and what is not a “flu tweet”, as that is not the main purpose of the assignment. We’re not trying to trick you, we promise! As long as your code works correctly for the examples provided above, and is case-insensitive, you’ll be fine. As you’ve surely noticed, this approach to identifying “flu tweets” is extremely simplified and probably not super-accurate, but determining whether a tweet really does indicate that someone has the flu is waaaay outside the scope of this assignment. So even if you believe you have a more accurate solution to the problem, for your submission, please be sure to follow the specifications described here! Determining the locations of tweets Once you have found the “flu tweets,” you will need to determine the state in which each originated. For the purpose of this assignment we will use a simplified approach to matching locations. The state of origin is defined as the state whose provided reference point (from “states.csv”) is the lowest cartesian (planar) distance from the tagged location of the tweet. In the event of an exact tie, pick one arbitrarily. All alternatives in such a scenario will be considered equally valid. Clearly this is not a perfect measure of distance — the Earth is a spheroid rather than a plane (hopefully we can all agree on that), states are weird shapes rather than single points, and we might be interested in other completely different definitions of distance (e.g. travel time), or distances to other things like cities, or general clustering. If you find yourself inspired to look into these or other more accurate and meaningful metrics, that’s great! But your program will be graded on how well it matches the expected results, which are calculated using “flat-earth” cartesian distances in the form.: distance = √ (longitude2 - longitude1)2 + (latitude2 - latitude1)2 Program output When your program finishes looking for “flu tweets” and determining their locations, it should print the number of “flu tweets” per state to the console, using System.out, with the state names listed in alphabetical order. (Hint: think about which data structure you can use to make this a bit easier!) When writing this summary output to the screen, please format it as one line per state. Each line should consist only of the state name followed by a colon (“:”) and one space, then the number of “flu tweets” from that state. Alabama: 1 McMurdo Station: 4 Mons Olympus: 1 Pennsylvania: 1000 Tranquility Base: 2 If a state has no flu tweets, it should be omitted from the output list. Please do not post questions in the discussion forum asking whether your state tally or tallies are correct! It is up to each student to determine the correct output of the program. Logging In addition to displaying the output as described above, your program must also record all of the “flu tweets” it identifies in the log file that was specified as an argument to the program. For each “flu tweet”, write one line to the log file. The line must start with the state name followed by 1 tab (“t”) followed by the text of the tweet. A good practice is to send each “flu tweet” to the logger as a separate logging request. This request should be sent as soon as you know both that it is a flu tweet and what state it is from. For example: Alabama I have the flu! Note: only the requested information should be sent to the logger. Do not add more information. Additional details: • Only flu tweets should be logged. • Flu tweets should be logged in the order they were read (i.e., in the order they appear in the file). • Each flu tweet should be logged exactly once. • Duplicate entries in the input should be treated as distinct tweets. If a particular tweet appears twice in the input, it should appear twice in the output. • Your logs should contain no extra output or extraneous characters. • If a log file with the same name already exists when the program starts, new log entries should be appended to the end of the existing file, rather than overwriting it. Functionality Checklist Things to double check: • Command line arguments: tweets file, states file, log file • Support json and tab-separated tweets files • Correct filtering for flu tweets • Correct location matching between tweets and states • Log handles both new and existing files • Log flu tweets in the order they are read • No extra duplication or omission of tweets (in the logs and the tallies) • Prints state tallies in alphabetical order • Only print states with tweets • Formatting is correct (improperly formatted output will not count, even for partial credit) • No extraneous output to System.out or to the log files • No translation or alteration of the input text (i.e. do not trim, do not apply character set translations) • Do not use System.exit Design Specification In addition to satisfying the functional specification described above, your program must also use some of the architecture and design patterns discussed in the videos. In particular, you must use the N-tier architecture to identify and then separate your application into functionally independent modules. To help with the organization of your code (and to help with the grading), please adhere to the following conventions: • the program’s “main” function must be in a class called Main, which should be in the edu.upenn.cit594 package • the classes in the Presentation/User Interface tier should be in the edu.upenn.cit594.ui pack- age • the classes in the Processor tier should be in the edu.upenn.cit594.processor package • the classes in the Data Management (file/backend data input/output, except for logging) tier should be in the edu.upenn.cit594.datamanagement package • the Singleton Logger class should be in the edu.upenn.cit594.logging package • the classes you create to share data between tiers should be in the edu.upenn.cit594.util package Your Main class should be responsible for reading the runtime arguments (described above), creating all the objects, arranging the dependencies between modules, etc. Beyond these tasks, make sure Main doesn’t perform. any duties that belong in other tiers. See the “Monolith vs. Modularity” reading assignment in Module 10 for an example if you are unsure how to do this. Because your program must be able to read the set of tweets from either a tab-separated file or from a JSON file, you must design your application so that you have two classes to read the tweets input file: one that reads from a tab-separated file and one that reads from a JSON file. The code that uses those classes should not care which one it’s using. The classes that read the input files should get the name of the input file via their constructor, passed from Main to whichever object creates them. The Logger A logger is a global ledger available for use by all parts of an application, for sequentially recording selected program events (typically debugging and monitoring information) separately from the primary program output. The logger is a self-contained companion facility to the rest of the application and is not governed by the main application design. It simply sits off to the side and records events at the request of any other application component. In general, there is one and only one logger instance, which is used by every part of the code at all times. The logger should be initialized only once, before or at the first possible loggable event, and any subsequent request for a logger, by any function, should return this same instance. In short, a logger is a perfect example of the Singleton design pattern, and your logger for this assignment must implement that pattern. The logger class must have instance methods (non-static methods) to: • Log an event. This method must have a single parameter of type String. • Set or change the output destination. This method must take a single String, the name of the file to write. You may choose how to handle events sent to the logger prior to setting an output file (this should not come up during normal operations). For the purpose of this assignment, you are free to just drop these events and not record them anywhere. The method that configures the output must support changing the output to a different file. That means it must be careful to close the current output, if one is set, before opening the requested destination. Logged events should appear in and only in the output file that is current when they are logged. Log files should be created if necessary and always opened with the append option, not overwritten. See the FileWriter documentation for details. Hint: The specified behaviors suggest settings to use when opening the output file and should not require additional logic in your code. Be mindful, if you want to use the Singleton pattern in other places in the code (this is neither recommended nor forbidden), it is not just about classes that you only instantiate once. A Singleton is global state that persists across much of the life of the application, so you wouldn’t want too many of these floating around, unable to be garbage-collected. Logistics Please be sure to read the section below, as some of the details for this project are different from that of other assignments. Testing As with previous assignments, writing your own tests is important to ensuring your implementation is ready for successful deployment (grading). Given the design calls for a number of components that must work together, it is recommended that you write tests that will carefully test each individual component as well as some integration tests that check that the components will work well with each other. Note: the tests that you write are for your benefit, they will not be graded. The starter files include one Java file with unit tests to check the basic functionality of your application. Those tests will check that the application can be run and generates properly formatted output. For the most part those tests will not check the correctness of the output or stress test your application. Passing these tests does not ensure that your code will receive full points, or even that you will get a good grade. These are just the most basic tests to ensure your code is gradable. Please make sure your implementation passes all provided tests before submission. Getting Help on the Discussion Board As always, you are welcome to use the discussion board to ask clarification questions, get help with error messages (particularly when using the JSON library), and ask for general advice. However, please do not post public questions regarding the correct outputs for the program (e.g., state flu tweet tallies or log contents). For instance, please do not post public questions along the lines of “My program says that Connecticut has 4 flu tweets; is that right?” It’s important that all students determine for themselves whether their program is working correctly. Unlike previous assignments, correct answers and test cases will not be provided in advance. Likewise, please do not post public questions such as “Should I put the code that reads the JSON file in the Processor tier or the Data Management tier?”. Answering that question by yourself is pretty much the point of the design aspect of the assignment! How to Submit Before you submit, make sure that you’ve signed off on the academic integrity statement. The template signoff template.txt is included in the starter resources and must be renamed with your first and last name. For example, John Smith would turn in the file “John Smith.txt”. Submit your code by uploading to Codio. Codio has BasicTests.java, the data files, and the jars for JUnit and JSON-Simple already loaded, so you only need to upload your src folder and the academic integrity statement. The academic integrity statement should be in the submit folder in Codio, not in the src folder. As with previous assignments, you should make sure your code runs there by clicking “Run Ba- sicTests” (which runs BasicTests.java), “Run Your Program: json” (which runs using the json input file), and “Run Your Program: text” (which runs using the input txt file) as many times as you need, to check basic functionality and output formatting. When you are ready to submit, press “Mark as Complete”. Unlike past assignments, grades will not be immediately provided, as this assignment has manually-graded components in addition to the usual automatic grading. When uploading, your src folder (which should contain your edu folder as its immediate child) should be inside the submit folder. By far, the easiest way to do this is by directly dragging the src folder from your computer’s file manager and dropping it directly on top of the submit folder on the left-hand side file tree in Codio. Don’t upload anything else and don’t delete anything in the submit folder.
Building Our Digital World: Computer Systems and Architecture COMP1860 Activity Sheet 2.3 This worksheet contains a combination of formative activities (which contribute towards your learning) and summative activities (which you will complete and submit to be assessed as part of your portfolio). Every exercise marked with a red border is a summative exercise and must be submitted as part of your portfolio. You should use PebblePad to submit portfolio activities. In addition, you may be required to submit other activities — the module teaching staff will provide instructions. Activities marked by (*) are advanced, and may take some time to complete. Expectations: 1. Timeliness You should complete all of the activities in the order provided and submit your portfolio evidence on PebblePad before the completion date (Friday, 21/02/2025, at 17:00). 2. Presentation You should present all of your work clearly and concisely following any additional guidance provided by the module staff in the module handbook. 3. Integrity You are responsible that the evidence you submit as part of your portfolio evidence is entirely your own work. You can find out more about academic integrity on the Skill@library website. All work you submit for assessment is subject to the academic integrity policy. Feedback: Feedback on formative activities will be provided via Lab classes and tutorials. Feedback on evidence submitted as part of the portfolio will be available on PebblePad. Support opportunities: Support with the activity sheet is available in the Lab classes and tutorials. Individual support is available via the online booking system. Expected time for completion: 2-3 hours. Expected complete date: Friday, 21/02/2025, at 17:00 Coursework summary We have discussed the stack machine paradigm and discussed the semantics of the Hack Virtual Machine language. You will now write programmes for the Hack Virtual Machine. You have already written Hack assembly code to perform. these tasks in Weeks 1 and 2 of Semester 2 (Activity Sheets 2.1 and 2.2), but you will now be using a different paradigm. In addition to the lecture slides on the Hack Virtual Machine, useful references for this activity sheet are [1, Chap. 7 and 8] and the corresponding YouTube videos by the authors. Learning outcomes On completion of this activity sheet, you will have: 1. examined the design of a stack machine; 2. implemented simple programmes utilising the stack machine paradigm; 3. designed and implemented simple programmes for the Hack Virtual Machine; and 4. utilised a simulator of the Hack Virtual Machine to test and debug programmes. Instructions Please submit your .vm files to the Activity Sheet 2.3 assessment on Gradescope. To complete this activity sheet, your solutions to the portfolio questions will need to pass at least 75% of the tests. When this happens, Gradescope will return an 8-character string for you to add as evidence in the PebblePad workbook for this activity sheet. 1. In the file EvaluateExpression.vm, write a programme for the Hack Virtual Machine that evaluates the expres- sion z = 17+x-3y, where x and y are the values initially stored in argument[0] and argument[1], respectively. The code must leave the final result z at the bottom of the stack and must not modify the values initially stored in argument[0] and argument[1]. 2. In the file Xor.vm, write a programme for the Hack Virtual Machine that computes z = x ⊕ y, where ⊕ denotes the element-wise xor (exclusive or) logical operator, and x and y are the values initially stored in argument[0] and argument[1]. The code must leave the final result z at the bottom of the stack and store it in argument[2]. The values initially stored in argument[0] and argument[1] must not be modified. 3. In the file AbsoluteValue.vm, write a programme for the Hack Virtual Machine that computes z = |x|, where x is the value initially stored in argument[0]. The code must store the result z in argument[1] and must set argument[2] to 1 if x is negative and to 0 otherwise. The memory location argument[3] must be set to 1 if the absolute value of the input cannot be computed, and to 0 otherwise. The value initially stored in argument[0] must not be modified. Hint: The approach you used in your solution to Question 3 in Activity Sheet 2.1 can be adapted quite directly to the stack machine paradigm. 4. In the file Square.vm, write a programme for the Hack Virtual Machine that computes y = x 2 , where x is the values initially stored in argument[0]. The code must leave the final result y at the bottom of the stack and must not modify the value initially stored in argument[0]. Hint: The approach you used in your solution to Question 1 in Activity Sheet 2.2 can be adapted quite directly to the stack machine paradigm. 5. (*) In the file AddWithOverflowCheck.vm, write a programme for the Hack virtual machine that computes the sum z = x+y, where x and y are the values initially stored in argument[0] and argument[1], respectively. The code must store the result z in argument[2] and set argument[3] to 1 if the sum overflows, and to 0 otherwise. The values initially stored in argument[0] and argument[1] must not be modified. Hint: The approach you used in your solution to Question 4 in Activity Sheet 2.1 can be adapted quite directly to the stack machine paradigm. References [1] Noam Nisan and Shimon Schocken. The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, second edition, 2005. The book is available to view and down-load at https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/leeds/detail.action?docID=6630880. Additional material is available at https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/elements-computing-systems.
Applied Economics Cost-Benefit Analysis (440.632, Spring 2025) Assignment 2: Travel cost to artificial reefs This assignment is worth 70 points and is due by 11:59 pm on April 6, 2025. You may discuss the assignment and how to solve it with your classmates, but you must do your own work. Ultimately, it is an individual assignment. All calculations and written narratives should be your own. On May 17, 2006, the ex-USS Oriskany, an Essex Class aircraft carrier, was deliberately sunk off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, to become “the world’s largest artificial reef.” It was hoped that the new artificial reef would provide many of the same ecosystem services supplied by a natural reef, including increased fish and sea-life habitat, improved fish stocks and angling quality, and new recreational diving opportunities. If successful in providing these services, the Oriskany will also relieve some of the use pressure on the area’s other reefs. Since its sinking, thousands of divers have visited the site. A spreadsheet entitled “Oriskany survey data.xls” has been posted on the class site containing two tabs. The first tab is a data dictionary, and the second tab is a subsample of the data from a web-based survey of individuals known to have dived to the Oriskany in the years just after its sinking. A printed copy of the actual survey has been posted in a file entitled “Oriskany survey.pdf.” The survey asked respondents to report their: (i) The actual number of dive trips to the Oriskany taken during the 2006 dive season, (ii) their expected number of trips in 2007, assuming 2006 conditions, and (iii) their expected number of trips in 2007, assuming a second diveable warship is sunk in the vicinity of the Oriskany. For the last question, respondents were told that there was the possibility of creating a “multiple-ship reefing area” by sinking a Spruance class destroyer in the permit area with the Oriskany. This would create the option to dive the Oriskany on the first dive and then travel to the new destroyer and dive it before returning to port. 1. (20 points) Collect and clean the data necessary to estimate the non-market value of recreational diving to the Oriskany artificial reef. (This can be done in Excel or your econometrics package.) a) (2 points) The data has been given to you in its raw form, including non-usable observations and errors. Clean the data for use in your statistical package. i) Load the data into Stata (or Excel) and remove all observations for which the party took no day trips in 2006. ii) Report the number of observations remaining after eliminating the data in part 1.a.i. b) Calculate the total travel cost for each respondent. Measure the travel cost as the sum of the travel expenses and the opportunity cost of time in 2023 dollars. i) (2 points) The Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics estimates the average cost per mile of owning and operating a vehicle. The latest data is for 2023. Search the internet for the “Average Cost of Owning and Operating an Automobile Bureau of Transportation Statistics.” Report the 2023 value for the average total cost per mile to operate and maintain a new vehicle, assuming the owner drives it 15,000 miles per year. ii) (2 points) Estimate the travel expense to the Oriskany site as the round trip distance in miles times the average cost of operating the vehicle per mile (which you just reported in part 1.b.i.), divided by the size of the traveling party. Note that the time reported in the survey is only for a one-way trip. Report the mean value of this travel expense. iii) (2 points) The income reported in the survey data reflects earnings in 2006. Update the income to what income would be in 2023 in real terms (that is without inflation) using a real earnings index for wage and salary workers. This can be found in the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis FRED database at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/. Search for “median weekly real earnings” and choose the series for “Employed full time: Median usual weekly real earnings: Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over.” Make sure that you use the “1982-84 CPI Adjusted Dollars, Quarterly, Seasonally Adjusted” series. Click the “Edit Graph” button on the right-hand side, above the graph and to the right, and modify the frequency to be annual data. You can download this data using the ”Download” button. Use this data to create a “wage deflator index” to update the 2006 income reported in the survey to 2023 real dollars. This is done by dividing the real wage in 2006 by the real wage in 2023 and multiplying it times the income in 2006. Report the real wage form 2006 and 2023, the wage deflator index you created, the mean value for the income reported in the survey, and your estimate of income in 2023 dollars. iv) (2 points) For each observation, estimate the opportunity cost of time for travel to the Oriskany site as the round trip travel time in hours times 50% of the average wage per hour. The per-hour wage can be estimated by taking the annual income (in 2023 dollars) and dividing it by 2,080 working hours per year. Again, note that the time reported in the survey is only the time for a one-way trip. Report the mean of this opportunity cost of time in 2023 dollars. v) (2 points) Measure the travel cost (in 2023 dollars) to the Oriskany as the sum of the travel expenses and the opportunity cost of time. Report the average travel cost for the sample here. c) (5 points) Calculate the travel cost to the alternative site, Key Largo, FL, the USS Spiegel Grove location, using the same assumptions you used in part 1.b. Again, note that time and distance to Key West are one way. Report the mean values (in 2023 dollars) for the travel expense, opportunity cost of time, and total travel cost to Key West here. d) After calculating the travel cost, create a new variable: household income (in 2023 dollars) divided by 10,000. You don’t need to report anything about this variable, but it will make reading the coefficients easier in your regressions. e) (3 points) Create a table containing the summary statistics for all your data, including the original data from the survey. Include the number of observations, the mean, the minimum, and the maximum. You can do this in Excel or Stata. Report that table of summary satistics here. 2. (25 points) Estimate the non-market value of recreational diving on the Oriskany in 2006 A survey of actual divers is equivalent to an on-site sample, so you need to correct for the fact that all respondents will have taken one or more trips. In other words, you have no observations for which the individual reported zero trips. (It is true that you deleted some observations where the response was zero for day trips, but those were divers who took multi-day trips, which we are excluding.) The easiest way to correct for this is to use a “zero-truncated” Poisson model. This is done using the “tpoisson” command in Stata (or the “ztp” command for older versions of Stata.) (For other statistical packages, you will have to find the correct command. For example, in Limdep, you would add the “Truncation $” option to the Poisson command. If you are using SAS or other statistical models, the zero-truncation model may not be available. In that case, just use the standard Poisson model, but please explain in your answer sheet that you are not using a zero-truncated Poisson model.) a) Run a zero-truncated Poisson model for the number of day trips taken in 2006. Use the following independent variables: i) The travel cost (in 2023 dollars) to the Oriskany. ii) The age of the respondent. iii) The household annual income (in 2023 dollars) (the one created in part 1.d.). iv) The number of years diving. v) A dummy variable indicating a technical diver. vi) The travel cost (in 2023 dollars) to the alternative site in Key West. vii) A constant term (which should happen automatically in most statistical packages). b) (5 points) Report the results of your Poisson model. Make sure to include the number of observations used in the regression. c) (10 points) Write a paragraph on your results, commenting on the sign, significance, and how one should interpret the all of coefficients. d) (2 points) Estimate the per-person-per-trip value for divers in 2006. The formula for this can be found in the lecture on Single Site Travel Cost Models. e) (4 points) Estimate the aggregate consumer surplus value for the Oriskany in 2006. Don’t worry about on-site vs. off-site corrections; this was addressed using the zero-truncated Poisson model. This formula is on the same slide as the one you used for part 2.d. f) (4 points) Estimate the present discounted value in perpetuity to the divers in this survey for this artificial reef. Assume a discount rate of 3%. Write a sentence or two commenting on what this value implicitly assumes about future changes in using this resource. 3. (15 points) Estimate the expected non-market value of recreational diving if a sunken destroyer was available as a second artificial reef for diving nearby a) (2 points) Beginning with all observations in the data posted on the class site, remove the observations that report zero expected trips if a sunken destroyer was available for diving nearby. (In other words, start over with the original data set. Then remove the observations with zero expected trips for the sunken destroyer. You can include the observations of those who had zero trips to the Oriskany in 2006.) Report the number of observations that are now in this sample. b) (2 points) Calculate the total number of expected trips in 2007 for this new sample and report that number here. c) (3 points) Run a zero-truncated Poisson model for the expected number of trips with this second artificial reef. Use the same independent variables as you did for the 2006 analysis. (If you reload the original data, you will have to recalculate the travel cost to the Oriskany and the Key West site again.) Report the results of that regression here. d) (3 points) Estimate and report the expected per-person-per-trip value, the aggregate consumer surplus, and the present discounted value in perpetuity for this site, assuming the addition of a second reef. e) (5 points) Write a paragraph commenting on the change in economic value associated with adding this second reef compared to your results for the expected economic value in 2006 that you reported in part 2. Does the change make sense to you? How would you interpret the change in the per-person-per-trip value, the aggregate consumer surplus, and the present discounted value in perpetuity? 4) (10 points) Write a one-page summary of the results of your analysis for this policy? How would you explain this type of analysis to a decision-maker who is familiar with economics but is not an economist? What are the estimated benefits of recreational diving on the Oriskany in 2006 and the estimated benefits in 2007 with a second reef? How did you use this information to predict the estimated benefits of sinking a second destroyer? Are there any uncertainties in this analysis? Is there any reason why the valued changed or monetized benefits that you estimated might be under- or over-stated?
Extended Brief – DMC2003 UX/UI Design for Web and Mobile Welcome to DMC2003 – Your Creative Journey Starts Here! This module is all about choice, self-realisation, and creativity – a space for you to explore, experiment, and express yourself in new ways while developing real-world skills in UX/UI design. Whether you're passionate about gaming, fashion, music, fitness, storytelling, or social change, your interests and talents will help shape your project. If you love dancing, you might enjoy designing an avatar that grooves to the beat. If you're into sewing, why not create a wearable tech app with a supporting website? Into sports? Imagine an interactive fitness platform. with motion tracking. Your unique skills, passions, and ideas are not just welcomed – they’re essential. This module is designed to celebrate both your learning outcomes (what you'll gain from the course) and your learning incomes (the skills and creativity you bring with you). The Project – One Idea, Two Outputs This is an individual assignment, as it focuses on both learning outcomes and learning incomes, giving each student the opportunity to explore their own creative choices and personal interests. You will be working on one project with dual outputs, meaning your concept will take shape across two complementary formats: 1. A mobile app prototype, and 2. A supporting website. These outputs will share the same: · Concept: A unified idea that ties both platforms together. · Visual Identity: Consistent branding with the same logo, colours, and typography. · Content Assets: Images, icons, videos, and audio elements across both formats. · User Experience Approach: Ensuring seamless interaction across mobile and web. This integrated approach mirrors real-world design challenges and helps you build a cohesive digital experience, just like industry professionals. Assessment Structure Formative Assignment – The 7-Slide Pitch Presentation Before diving into development, you'll present your concept through a 7-slide pitch deck, demonstrating your creative vision and thought process. Deliverables: · A professional slide deck (PowerPoint or equivalent) including: o Miro Ideation Map – Showcasing your brainstorming and research. o Branding Elements – Logos, colour schemes, and typography choices. o User Personas – Who your users are and how your project serves them. o Wireframes & Mockups – Early visual representations of your mobile app and website. o Moodboards & Inspiration – Visual references that shape your design. o Audio/Video Elements – To enhance your pitch with engaging media. · A recorded presentation video (PowerPoint or other presentation software) explaining your concept and design decisions. This formative assignment is your chance to refine your ideas, gather feedback, and prepare for the full development process. Summative Assignment – Final Project Portfolio Your final submission will include both the mobile app prototype and the website, forming a cohesive UX/UI design experience. Deliverables: 1. Mobile App Prototype (Choose One Approach): o Adobe XD/Figma interactive prototype. o Unity-based mobile experience (e.g. GPS locative audio experience). o A fully designed no-code mobile experience (e.g. Webflow, Wix Mobile). 2. Website (Choose One Platform): o Wix, WordPress, GitHub Pages, or similar platforms, or custom HTML/CSS. o Interactive storytelling site (video-heavy or multimedia-driven). o NFT/Web3 immersive project. Supporting Elements: · Final high-fidelity design assets (logos, images, UI elements). · A reflection document discussing your learning journey and process (1000 words) including user journey and experience testing documentation. Key Focus Areas for Success Throughout the module, you'll explore and develop skills in: · User-Centred Design Thinking – Designing solutions that meet real user needs. · Interactive Prototyping – Bringing ideas to life through engaging experiences. · Visual Identity & Branding – Creating compelling and cohesive digital experiences. · Technical Flexibility – Whether you're coding or using no-code tools, it's all about creativity. · Storytelling & Presentation – Communicating your ideas effectively and confidently. Project Themes & Inspiration Need some inspiration? Here are a few ideas to get you started: · Fitness & Wellbeing: A mobile app for guided workouts with a companion website featuring nutrition tips. · Fashion & Wearables: An interactive portfolio for wearable tech or sustainable fashion projects. · Social Impact: A platform. raising awareness for a social cause with mobile engagement. · Gaming & Entertainment: A character customisation app with a fan-focused website. · Event Planning: A festival/event planning app with an engaging web presence. · Learning & Education: An educational app with a blog-style. website. Whatever your passion, you have the freedom to shape your project to reflect your interests and career aspirations. How You’ll Be Supported This module is designed to guide and support you every step of the way: · Workshops & Studio Time – Hands-on sessions to help you develop your project. · Guest Talks & Industry Insights – Get inspired by professionals in the field. · Peer Feedback Sessions – Collaborate and learn from your classmates. · One-on-One Mentoring – Personalised support to help refine your ideas. Remember, there’s no single way to success – this journey is yours to shape. Submission Deadlines · Formative 7-Slide Pitch Submission: [Insert Date] · Summative Final Project Submission: [Insert Date] Late submissions may impact grading, so plan your work effectively and seek help early if needed. Grading Criteria Your project will be assessed based on: 1. Creativity & Originality – How unique and engaging is your concept? 2. User Experience – How intuitive and seamless is the user journey? 3. Visual Design Quality – How well are branding and aesthetics applied? 4. Technical Execution – How well does your chosen platform. meet the project's needs? 5. Presentation & Documentation – How effectively have you communicated your ideas? Get Started Today! 1. Start brainstorming ideas and inspirations that excite you. 2. Gather references, sketch rough concepts, and map out potential user journeys. 3. Explore the tools and platforms that will best support your project vision. This is your opportunity to combine your interests, passions, and technical skills to create something truly meaningful and exciting. We’re here to support you throughout the process—so dive in, have fun, and create something amazing! Good luck and let your creativity shine!
CHE216 Assessed Coursework 2 Submit your answers as a separate file Deadline Friday 11 April 16:00 h Very Important: please ensure you appreciate the following before attempting this assessment. This assessment is a primarily a test ofyou understanding of the topic (your ability to answer the questions is secondary to your understanding). Thus, in answering this question you must provide a detailed description ofyour method. That is, you must explain: (a) what you are doing, and (b), why you are doing it, at every stage in answering this question. Getting the answer right is worth less than half of the marks for this exercise. Convincing your examiner that you understand what you are doing to get the correct answer is worth most of the marks. Question 1 30 marks Consider a unit vector pointing along the z-direction. By considering how this vector transforms under symmetry operations, show that the irreducible representations ofthis vector are: A1 under C2v. A1 under C3v. A2” under D3h, Au under C2h A2u under D4h Please note that you are told the answers. So, in this question all marks are for how well you explain your proofthat the answer is right. Question 2 30 marks Consider a basis of x,y,z displacement unit vectors on all atoms of the ammonia molecule. (a) Show that three hydrogen atoms do not contribute to the character of the representative matrix of the for the C3 symmetry operation. (b) Use the example of the C3 to show that the representative matrices for the symmetry C3 operation ofC3v cannot be reduced (block diagonalised) to 3 1x1 matrices, but instead must each give a 1x1 matrix for z with a character of 1 and a 2x2 matrix for x,y. with a character of -1. Question 3 30 marks Consider a basis of x,y,z displacement unit vectors on all atoms of the ammonia molecule. (a) Use this basis to determine: (i) The reducible representation for the motions of ammonia in 3D space. (ii) The irreducible representation for the motions of ammonia in 3D space. (iii) The irreducible representation for the vibrational motions ofthe ammonia molecule. (iv) The irreducible representation for the IR-active and Raman Active modes of ammonia. (b) Make sketches showing how the atoms move in allA1 vibrational modes of ammonia. Question 4 10 marks Consider a basis of x,y,z displacement unit vectors on all atoms of the benzene molecule. Use this basis to determine: The irreducible representation for the IR-active modes of ammonia. Hint: this question is only for 10 marks, but it might seem more difficult, or at lease more work, than is required in Question 3. However, you can take shortcuts and simplifications to vastly reduce the work required to answer this question. Your answer should though contain a description and justifications for using those short cuts.
BSYS847 Assessment 2 - Data Analysis Assignment 1 This assessment requires you to develop visuals and conduct a descriptive analysis of cyber security performance measures. The hypothetical cyber security performance measures data is for one thousand organizations in an Excel spreadsheet. The lower the compliance score, the lower the cyber security performance. Please carefully note the following points about the data: 1. Cybersecurity performance is measured in the “compliance score” variable. 2. The organization_id variable presents the unique identifier for each organization. 3. The department_type presents the department within the organization. 4. The control_title variable represents the controls related to cyber security that are used in the organization. 5. The compliance_score variable presents the compliance score for each control applied in the organization. Using the dataset and the RStudio application, you are required to: Question 1. Using the Plotly package, develop an interactive bar graph of the average compliance score for each department. Export the interactive bar graph as an HTML file and upload it on Canvas. The HTML file can be named as department_graph_student_name_surname. Question 2. Using the Plotly package, develop an interactive bar graph of the average compliance score for each control (i.e. control_title). Export the interactive bar graph as an HTML file and upload it on Canvas. The HTML file can be named as control_graph_student_name_surname. Question 3. Which control, i.e. (control_title), has received the lowest average compliance score? Question 4. Using the Plotly package, develop an interactive box plot of the compliance score for each control. Export the interactive box graph as an HTML file and upload it on Canvas. The HTML file can be named as box_plot_student_name_surname. Question 5. Which control title has the highest spread for compliance score? Question 6. Which control title has an outlier value? Question 7. Based on the box plot, which control titles are suitable for further analysis? Why? Please carefully note the following points: 1. You should provide the answers in the form. of bulleted points. 2. The maximum word limit for the assignment is 200 words. 3. The answers must be provided in the Answer Template given below. The same template is also provided as a sperate file. Please note that marks will be deducted if the answers are not provided in the template. 4. Please submit your answer template on Turnitin (submission link available on CANVAS).
FINC6024 – S1 2025 INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 1 Due: Sunday, 30 March 11:59pm This individual assignment is worth 10 Marks and has four questions, all equally weighted marks: 1. Executive Summary of the Case 1 Resolution (max 200 words) [2.5 Marks] Provide an executive summary of your team's case resolution. Your executive summary should focus on the macro-level reasoning and recommendations. It may help you to imagine that this ES will be the first thing (on your resolution) read by the CEO. 2. Pro forma statement of cash flows [2.5 Marks] You have been asked to develop a pro forma statement of cash flow for West Office Plaza. The information given to you is listed below. Property Information: WEST OFFICE PLAZA Rentable Area 320,000 sq. feet Age 10 Years # Stories 20 # Tenants 50 Financial Information Base Rent Avg. $18 per sq. ft Other Income/ Parking/Storage $1.60 per sq. ft Expenses Recoverable from Tenants $2.40 per sq. ft Current Vacancy 8% Expenses Mgmt./ Admin/ Security/ Ownership $745,000 Property Taxes $680,000 Insurance $450,000 General Operations/ Leasing Expense/ Marketing $692,000 Utilities $1,241,000 Janitorial/ Cleaning $499,000 Business Taxes $125,000 Other: Recurring CAPEX/ Improvement Allowance $837,000 a. Develop a pro forma statement of cash flow for a base year showing net operating income (NOI) for West Office Plaza. b. If you plan to begin work on future proformas for West Office Plaza, list at least five major factors that you would consider. 3. Property metrics [2.5 Marks] You are an employee of University Consultants, Ltd., and have been given the following assignment. You are to present an investment analysis of a new small residential income-producing property for sale to a potential investor. The asking price for the property is $1,250,000; rents are estimated at $200,000 during the first year and are expected to grow at 3.5 percent per year thereafter. Vacancies and collection losses are expected to be 10 percent of rents. Operating expenses will be 35 percent of effective gross income. A fully amortizing 70 percent loan can be obtained at 11 percent interest for 30 years (payments are made bi-monthly). The property is expected to appreciate in value at 3 percent per year as is expected to be owned for five years then sold. a. What is the investor’s expected before-tax internal rate of return on equity invested (BTIRR)? b. What is the first-year debt coverage ratio? c. What is the terminal capitalization rate? d. What is the NPV using a 13.5 percent discount rate? What does this mean? e. What is the profitability index using a 13.5 percent discount rate? What does this mean? 4. REITS [2.5 Marks] Atlantis REIT expects an income of $9.67 per share. This includes a deduction of $2.72 per share for depreciation. Atlantis did not have any gains from the sale of real estate. Its properties are mainly apartments, and you believe that apartments are currently selling on average at about an 8% cap rate. Atlantis has 1 million shares outstanding and its balance sheet shows liabilities of $50.87 million. Comparable REITs have FFO multiples of about 6. Atlantis is expected to pay a dividend during the next fiscal year of $7.05 per share and to increase those dividends at about 2 percent per year in the future. Investors in REITs like Atlantis usually expect a return of about 12 percent. a. What is the FFO and value per share based on an FFO multiple? b. What value per share is indicated using a dividend discount model? c. What is the value per share implied by the net asset value of the properties?
ENEM012 Assignment -2 1GW off grid Agri-Solar Farm for Hydrogen Powered FCEVehicle (HPFCEV) Charging Station AHEP4 learning outcomes assessed: M6 & M6-FL: Apply an integrated or system approach to the solution of complex problems M16 & M16-FL: Function effectively as an individual, and as a member or leader of a team. Evaluate effectiveness of own and team performance Submission format: Electronic, via ELE Feedback will be written feedback for each individual group submission, within three weeks of submission. There will be group marking and final marking of each group member will depends on the peer assessment score. This assignment is worth 60% of the overall module mark. Assignment guidance • You should produce an academic journal type report to build a 1GW off grid solar farm (Agri-PV) in a given location for Hydrogen Powered Vehicle charging station. The report should be minimum of 4,000 words and maximum 6,000/7000 words equivalent. • PV should be bifacial PV type (could be silicon, thin film type) • Should have clear method and results for APV, number of hydrogen vehicles is possible to charge based on particular type of charging pattern. • Charging pattern is similar to refuelling of hydrogen vehicle from hydrogen gas station • This will be group work and later each individual will score each of their group member. Group score will then change based on the peer assessment score hence each individual will have different score than the group score. Assignment details Content: The main aim of the report is to design minimum of 1 GW (maximum can be anything) off grid Agri-solar farm, and analyse the number of hydrogen vehicles will be charged from this farm. The specific objectives are as follows 1. Power generation from Agri-Solar farm for a particular location (you can use PVSYST for this or any software from where you can generate PV power for a particular location ) 2. You need crop model tool. Some tools for crop model [APSIM, APEX (Agricultural Policy/Environmental eXtender), CROPWAT 8.0, CLIMWAT, DSSAT (Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer), GroIMP (Growth Grammar related Interactive Modeling Platform), STICS (Simulateur mulTI-disciplinaire pour lesCultures Standard)] 3. Logical reason behind the selection of the location and type of PV systems 4. Find at least 6 hydrogen vehicles charging pattern (demographic variability will be appreciated) e.g petrol station, and other 5 types from different region. 5. Find out how many hydrogen-powered vehicle can be charged from this 1GW or more Agri-solar farm for that particular location employing different Hydrogen powered FCEV charging pattern 6. Essential elements are LCOE, LCOA, LCOH, LER however other elements are also important but these four must be present. Report writing details: • STRUCTURE: there is no prescribed structure for the report but you should ensure a logical flow of information • Word LIMIT: minimum 4000 words and maximum 6000/7000 words with margins of 2.54 cm on the left, right, top, bottom • FONT: font for the main body of the report should be size 11 and font Times New Roman • LINE SPACING: no less than 1.15 line spacing for the main body of the report • TABLES AND FIGURES: you are encouraged to use tables and figures where appropriate. Make sure you label them properly and refer to them in the text. • REFERENCES: you should consider citing academic papers, technical reports and other relevant documents to strengthen your analysis. Make sure you properly reference any material cited (including tables and figures if you didn’t make them yourself) to avoid plagiarism! Use a consistent reference style of your choice. • SUBMISSION: electronic submission to both E-BART and turnitin. Deadline for submission is midday (12:00) 28th March 2025
Assignment Remit Programme Title BSc Accounting and Finance Module Title Taxation: Principles and Planning Module Code 33179 Assignment Title Individual Report Level LI Weighting 50% Hand Out Date 20 January 2025 Deadline Date & Time 24 March 2025 Before 12pm (12-noon) Feedback Post Date 16th working day after the deadline date Assignment Format Report Assignment Length 1,500 words Submission Format Online Individual Module Learning Outcomes: This assignment is designed to assess the following module learning outcomes. Your LO5. Evaluate a real life-scenario to provide tax planning advice in areas such as: the choice of business form, personal taxation, loss relief, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, capital expenditure or VAT. Assignment: You are a tax executive working at Hayling Associates based in Birmingham. One of your clients, Mohammed, has approached your firm for some capital gains tax advice. One of the assistant tax advisers has prepared some initial calculations and asked if you can check them for accuracy. Information about your client and their capital gains tax position Mohammed is retired and receives pension of £20,200 per year. He also received dividends from his investments in the UK companies totalling £8,000 in the 2024/25 tax year. In addition to these earnings, Mohammed owns three properties, a cottage in Devon, a piece of land and a house in Sheffield. Mohammed sold two of these properties in 2024/25, namely the cottage and the piece of land, and the details relating to each are provided below: 1. A small cottage in Devon, which he had inherited from his great-grandfather in January 1998, when its value was £60,000. His grandfather paid £40,000 to purchase the cottage in December 1991. Mohammed has never used this property as his main residence, but rather used it as a summer holiday cottage. He had added a conservatory to the property at a cost of £9,500 in June 1999. In May 2024, he sold the property for £300,000. The legal and estate agent’s fee he incurred on the disposal of the property amounted to £3,500. 2. A vacant 5-hectare plot of land, which he sold in January 2025 for £45,000. The plot was part of a 13-hectare plot originally bought by Mohammed for £41,000 in October 1995 and not used by him as a business asset, nor is it associated with a residential property. Solicitor’s fees associated with the sale of the land were £2,500. The remaining 8-hectare plot was valued at £82,000 in January 2025. Initial calculations prepared by the assistant tax adviser The assistant tax adviser has provided you with the following draft income tax computation and draft capital gains tax computation for Mohammed for the 2024/25 tax year. Further information about your client Mohammed also has a house in Sheffield, which he has not yet sold. He is not sure whether to sell it in March 2025, or postpone the sale until the next tax year. He purchased on 1 July 2015 for £120,000 and took up immediate residence. On 1 January 2016, Mohammed’s empIoyer required him to live and work in the United States, where he stayed until 30 June 2018. On 1 July 2018, he returned to the UK to work for the same employer - however, due to a change in his role he was required to work in Scotland. Mohammed’s roIe requires him to be physicaIIy present at his empIoyer’s premises every day. This meant that during his time working in Scotland it was necessary for him to occupy rented accommodation in Scotland because it is not feasible to commute from Sheffield to Scotland every day. On 1 July 2019, Mohammed resigned from his job in Scotland to go and live with his parents in Birmingham, as they needed his support. He is still living in Birmingham, and he is intending to sell his house in Sheffield for £200,000 and he expects soIicitor’s fees and estate agent’s fees related to the sale to be £1,500 and £2,100, respectively. Initial calculations prepared by the assistant tax adviser The assistant tax adviser has prepared a separate calculation of the capital gain assessable on Mohammed for the sale of his house in Sheffield, showing both exempt and chargeable periods. Capital gain assessable on Mohammed for the sale of the house in Sheffield Total months 117 Exempt months 45 Chargeable months 72 £ Sale proceeds 120,000 Less: incidental costs of disposal (1,500 + 2,100) (3,600) Gain 116,400 Less: PPR exemption 116,400 x 72/117 (71,631) 44,769 PART A: REVIEW OF THE WORK PREPARED BY THE ASSISTANT TAX ADVISER (35%) i) Review the assistant tax adviser's calculations for accuracy, and draft an email to the assistant tax adviser, which: a. explains any errors you find and why they need to be corrected, and (20 marks) b. offers guidance on how they could improve their knowledge of capital gains tax. (15 marks) (TOTAL FOR PART A: 35 MARKS) PART B: CALCULATIONS (15%) Prepare the following revised computations and calculations: o Mohammed’s income tax computation for 2024/25 . (3 marks) o Mohammed’s capitaI gains tax computation for 2024/25, caIcuIated in the most tax efficient way (assuming he does not sell his house in Sheffield in the 2024/25 tax year). (9 marks) o A separate calculation of the capital gain assessable on Mohammed for the sale of his house in Sheffield, showing both exempt and chargeable periods. (3 marks) (TOTAL FOR PART B: 15 marks) PART C: REPORT TO MOHAMMED (40%) Prepare a report addressed to Mohammed to provide advice in terms of his capital gains tax liability associated with the sales of his properties. This should include the impact of selling his house in Sheffield in 2024/25 compared to selling it in 2025/26 (based on your calculations in (a)). Include any relevant recommendations that he could consider to minimise his capital gains tax liability through tax planning. Your report should include the following information: 1. The most tax efficient way of treating the chargeable gain on the properties already sold in 2024/25, explaining how these savings are achieved. 2. A clear recommendation of whether Mohammed should sell his house in Sheffield in 2024/25 or 2025/26, explaining how the recommended option is more tax efficient. 3. An explanation of why Mohammed’s house in Sheffield is only partially exempt from capital gains tax as his private residence. What could he have done differently in the past to increase the exempt portion of the chargeable gain? The remaining 10% of marks will be awarded for communication style. Notes on the task: • Your answer should include the following items: 1. an email to the assistant tax adviser (as your answer to part a) 2. a report to the client, Mohammed (as your answer to part c) 3. an appendix with calculations (as your answer to part b) Each item should be written separately and started a new page within your submission document. Please only submit one document. • All tax calculations should be in accordance with the Finance Act 2024 (tax year 2024/25). • Assume that the tax rates and allowances are the same in 2025/26 as they are in 2024/25. • For the purposes of the calculation of the gain on the sale of the house in Sheffield, you should assume that Mohammed sells the property on either 31 March 2025 (if sold in 2024/25 tax year) or on 6 April 2025 (if sold in the 2025/26 tax year) • The principal private residence (PPR) partial exemption should be calculated to the nearest month (i.e., round up to the end of the month if the date of disposal falls in the second half of the month and round down to the start of the month if the date of disposal falls in the first half of the month). • Please ensure computations are clearly presented and that workings are shown for all calculations. There are some marks available in the marking scheme for presentation. Computations and workings should be shown in an appendix to the report. • The word limit is a maximum of 1,500 words. Reports that exceed this will be penalised with the following grade point deductions: o Up to 10% over: no penalty o 11% to 20% over: 5% penalty o 21% to 30% over: 10% penalty o More than 30% over: 15% penalty Tables, figures, the reference list, and the appendix do not count towards the word count. • Please ensure that the structure follows that of a report format with clear headings. Remember reports are formal documents which can include headings, sub-headings, numbered sections, and graphics such as tables, flow charts, diagrams, or graphs (where appropriate). All these devices help the reader navigate the report and understand its content. However, please ensure that any tables, and/or graphics are referred to in the main body of the report. • The use of external sources must be appropriately cited and referenced. You are required to use the Harvard referencing style. • If you have any questions related to the assignment, please use the discussion forum on Canvas or speak to the module leader in class. • Please read the discussion forum prior to submitting your work to ensure you have read all information relevant to this assignment. Grading Criteria: Your submission will be graded according to the following criteria: Item Criteria Weighting 1 Part A: Identification of errors 10% 2 Part A: Corrective action explanation 10% 3 Part A: Knowledge enhancement guidance 15% 4 Part B: Calculations 15% 5 Part C: Report 40% 6 Overall: Communication style 10% Total 100%
