Saturday, January 25, 2020

The Underwater Wireless Communications Information Technology Essay

The Underwater Wireless Communications Information Technology Essay Wireless communication technology today has become part of our daily life; the idea of wireless undersea communications may still seem far-fetched. However, research has been active for over a decade on designing the methods for wireless information transmission underwater. The major discoveries of the past decades, has motivated researches to carry out better and efficient ways to enable unexplored applications and to enhance our ability to observe and predict the ocean. The purpose of this paper is to introduce to the readers the basic concepts, architecture, protocols and modems used in underwater wireless communications. The paper also presents the difficulties faced in terms of power management and security, and the latest developments in the underwater wireless industry. Towards the end, we also discuss a wide range of applications of underwater wireless communication. Index Terms: Underwater Wireless Communication (UWCs), Medium Access Control (MAC), Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UAWSNs). I. INTRODUCTION In last several years, underwater sensor network (UWSN) has found an increasing use in a wide range of applications, such as coastal surveillance systems, environmental research, autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) operation, many civilian and military applications such as oceanographic data collection, scientific ocean sampling, pollution, environmental monitoring, climate recording, offshore exploration, disaster prevention, assisted navigation, distributed tactical surveillance, and mine reconnaissance. By deploying a distributed and scalable sensor network in a 3-dimensional underwater space, each underwater sensor can monitor and detect environmental parameters and events locally. Hence, compared with remote sensing, UWSNs provide a better sensing and surveillance technology to acquire better data to understand the spatial and temporal complexities of underwater environments. Some of these applications can be supported by underwater acoustic sensor networks (UWASNs), which consist of devices with sensing, processing, and communication capabilities that are deployed to perform collaborative monitoring tasks. Fig 1 gives a generalized diagram of an UWASN. Wireless signal transmission is also crucial to remotely control instruments in ocean observatories and to enable coordination of swarms of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and robots, which will play the role of mobile nodes in future ocean observation networks by virtue of their flexibility and reconfigurability. Present underwater communication systems involve the transmission of information in the form of sound, electromagnetic (EM), or optical waves. Each of these techniques has advantages and limitations. Acoustic communication is the most versatile and widely used technique in underwater environments due to the low attenuation (signal reduction) of sound in water. This is especially true in thermally stable, deep water settings. On the other hand, the use of acoustic waves in shallow water can be adversely affected by temperature gradients, surface ambient noise, and multipath propagation due to reflection and refraction. The much slower speed of acoustic propagation in water, about 1500 m/s (meters per second), compared with that of electromagnetic and optical waves, is another limiting factor for efficient communication and networking. Nevertheless, the currently favorable technology for underwater communication is upon acoustics. On the front of using electromagnetic (EM) waves in radio frequencies, conventional radio Figure1. Scenario of a UW-ASN composed of underwater and surface vehicles does not work well in an underwater environment due to the conducting nature of the medium, especially in the case of seawater. However, if EM could be working underwater, even in a short distance, its much faster propagating speed is definitely a great advantage for faster and efficient communication among nodes. Free-space optical (FSO) waves used as wireless communication carriers are generally limited to very short distances because the severe water absorption at the optical frequency band and strong backscatter from suspending particles. Even the clearest water has 1000 times the attenuation of clear air, and turbid water has more than 100 times the attenuation of the densest fog. Nevertheless, underwater FSO, especially in the blue-green wavelengths, offers a practical choice for high-bandwidth communication (10-150 Mbps, bits per second) over moderate ranges (10-100 meters). This communication range is much needed in harbor inspection, oil-rig maintenance, and linking submarines to land, just name a few of the demands on this front. In this paper we discuss the physical fundamentals and the implications of using acoustic waves as the wireless communication carrier in underwater environments in Section II, then we discuss an Overview of Routing Protocols for Underwater Wireless Communications in Section III. Section IV we discuss about the two networking architectures of UWSNS. Section V we discuss about acoustic modem technology and will describe Link Quest Incs Cutting-Edge Acoustic Modems in detail.. Section VI gives a comparison between ground based sensors with that of a Mobile UWSNs, Section VII we throw some light on the various applications of UWC. And finally we conclude the paper in Section VIII followed by references. II. ACOUSTIC WAVES Among the three types of waves, acoustic waves are used as the primary carrier for underwater wireless communication systems due to the relatively low absorption in underwater environments. We start the discussion with the physical fundamentals and the implications of using acoustic waves as the wireless communication carrier in underwater environments. Propagation velocity: The extremely slow propagation speed of sound through water is an important factor that differentiates it from electromagnetic propagation. The speed of sound in water depends on the water properties of temperature, salinity and pressure (directly related to the depth). A typical speed of sound in water near the ocean surface is about 1520 m/s, which is more than 4 times faster than the speed of sound in air, but five orders of magnitude smaller than the speed of light. The speed of sound in water increases with increasing water temperature, increasing salinity and increasing depth. Most of the changes in sound speed in the surface ocean are due to the changes in temperature. Approximately, the sound speed increases 4.0 m/s for water temperature arising 1C. When salinity increases 1 practical salinity unit (PSU), the sound speed in water increases 1.4 m/s. As the depth of water (therefore also the pressure) increases 1 km, the sound speed increases roughly 17 m/ s. It is noteworthy to point out that the above assessments are only for rough quantitative or qualitative discussions, and the variations in sound speed for a given property are not linear in general. Fig.2. a vertical profile of sound speed in seawater as the lump-sum function of depth Absorption: The absorptive energy loss is directly controlled by the material imperfection for the type of physical wave propagating through it. For acoustic waves, this material imperfection is the inelasticity, which converts the wave energy into heat. The absorptive loss for acoustic wave propagation is frequency-dependent, and can be expressed as e ®(f)d, where d is the propagation distance and  ®(f) is the absorption coefficient at frequency f. For seawater, the absorption coefficient at frequency f in kHz can be written as the sum of chemical relaxation processes and absorption from pure water where the first term on the right side is the contribution from boric acid, the second term is from the contribution of magnesium sulphate, and the third term is from the contribution of pure water; A1, A2, and A3 are constants; the pressure dependencies are given by parameters P1, P2 and P3; and the relaxation frequencies f1 and f2 are for the relaxation process in boric acid and magnesium sulphate, respectively. Fig. 3 shows the relative contribution from the different sources of absorption as a function of frequency. Fig.3. Absorption in generic seawater Multipath: An acoustic wave can reach a certain point through multiple paths. In a shallow water environment, where the transmission distance is larger than the water depth, wave reflections from the surface and the bottom generate multiple arrivals of the same signal. The Fig 4 illustrates the adverse effects of Multipath Propagation. In deep water, it occurs due to ray Fig 4: Shallow water multipath propagation: in addition to the direct path, the signal propagates via reflections from the surface and bottom. bending, i.e. the tendency of acoustic waves to travel along the axis of lowest sound speed. The channel response varies in time, and also changes if the receiver moves. Regardless of its origin, multipath propagation creates signal echoes, resulting in intersymbol interference in a digital communication system. While in a cellular radio system multipath spans a few symbol intervals, in an underwater acoustic channel it can spans few tens, or even hundreds of symbol intervals! To avoid the intersymbol interference, a guard time, of length at least equal to the multipath spread, must be inserted between successively transmitted symbols. However, this will reduce the overall symbol rate, which is already limited by the system bandwidth. To maximize the symbol rate, a receiver must be designed to counteract very long intersymbol interference. Path Loss: Path loss that occurs in an acoustic channel over a distance d is given as A= dka (f) d, where k is the path loss exponent whose value is usually between 1 and 2, and a(f) is the absorption factor that depends on the frequency f. This dependence severely limits the available bandwidth: for example, at distances on the order of 100 km, the available bandwidth is only on the order of 1 kHz. At shorter distances, a larger bandwidth is available, but in practice it is limited by that of the transducer. Also in contrast to the radio systems, an acoustic signal is rarely narrowband, i.e., its bandwidth is not negligible with respect to the center frequency. Within this limited bandwidth, the signal is subject to multipath propagation, which is particularly pronounced on horizontal channels. III ROUTING PROTOCOLS There are several drawbacks with respect to the suitability of the existing terrestrial routing solutions for underwater wireless communications. Routing protocols can be divided into three categories, namely, proactive, reactive, and geographical. Proactive protocols provoke a large signaling overhead to establish routes for the first time and each time the network topology is modified because of mobility, node failures, or channel state changes because updated topology information must be propagated to all network devices. In this way, each device can establish a path to any other node in the network, which may not be required in underwater networks. Also, scalability is an important issue for this family of routing schemes. For these reasons, proactive protocols may not be suitable for underwater networks. Reactive protocols are more appropriate for dynamic environments but incur a higher latency and still require source-initiated flooding of control packets to establish paths. Reactive protocols may be unsuitable for underwater networks because they also cause a high latency in the establishment of paths, which is amplified underwater by the slow propagation of acoustic signals. Geographical routing protocols are very promising for their scalability feature and limited signaling requirements. However, global positioning system (GPS) radio receivers do not work properly in the underwater environment. Still, underwater sensing devices must estimate their current position, irrespective of the chosen routing approach, to associate the sampled data with their 3D position. IV ARCHITECTURE In general, depending on the permanent vs on-demand placement of the sensors, the time constraints imposed by the applications and the volume of data being retrieved, we could roughly classify the aquatic application scenarios into two broad categories: long-term non-time-critical aquatic monitoring and short-term time-critical aquatic exploration. Fig 5: An illustration of the mobile UWSN architecture for long-term non-time-critical aquatic monitoring applications Fig. 5 illustrates the mobile UWSN architecture for long-term non-time-critical aquatic monitoring applications. In this type of network, sensor nodes are densely deployed to cover a spacial continuous monitoring area. Data are collected by local sensors, related by intermediate sensors, and finally reach the surface nodes (equipped with both acoustic and RF (Radio Frequency) modems), which can transmit data to the on-shore command center by radio. Since this type of network is designed for long-term monitoring task, then energy saving is a central issue to consider in the protocol design. Moreover, depending on the data sampling frequency, we may need mechanisms to dynamically control the mode of sensors (switching between sleeping modes, wake-up mode, and working mode). In this way, we may save more energy. Further, when sensors are running out of battery, they should be able to pop up to the water surface for recharge, for which a simple air-bladder-like device would suffice. Clearly, in the mobile UWSNs for long-term aquatic monitoring, localization is a must-do task to locate mobile sensors, since usually only location-aware data is useful in aquatic monitoring. In addition, the sensor location information can be utilized to assist data forwarding since geo-routing proves to be more efficient than pure flooding. Furthermore, location can help to determine if the sensors float crossing the boundary of the interested area. Fig 6: An illustration of the mobile UWSN architecture for short-term time-critical aquatic exploration applications In Fig. 6, we show a civilian scenario of the mobile UWSN architecture for short-term time-critical aquatic exploration applications. Assume a ship wreckage accident investigation team wants to identify the target venue. When the cable is damaged the ROV is out-of-control or not recoverable. In contrast, by deploying a mobile underwater wireless sensor network, as shown in Fig. 2, the investigation team can control the ROV remotely. The self-reconfigurable underwater sensor network tolerates more faults than the existing tethered solution. After investigation, the underwater sensors can be recovered by issuing a command to trigger air-bladder devices. As limited by acoustic physics and coding technology, high data rate networking can only be realized in high-frequency acoustic band in underwater communication. It was demonstrated by empirical implementations that the link bandwidth can reach up to 0.5Mbps at the distance of 60 meters. Such high data rate is suitable to deliver even multimedia data. Compared with the first type of mobile UWSN for long-term non-time-critical aquatic monitoring, the mobile UWSN for short-term time-critical aquatic exploration presents the following differences in the protocol design. Real-time data transfer is more of concern Energy saving becomes a secondary issue. Localization is not a must-do task. However, reliable, resilient, and secure data transfer is always a desired advanced feature for both types of mobile UWSNs. V ACOUSTIC MODEM TECHNOLOGY Acoustic modem technology offers two types of modulation/detection: frequency shift keying (FSK) with non-coherent detection and phase-shift keying (PSK) with coherent detection. FSK has traditionally been used for robust acoustic communications at low bit rates (typically on the order of 100 bps). To achieve bandwidth efficiency, i.e. to transmit at a bit rate greater than the available bandwidth, the information must be encoded into the phase or the amplitude of the signal, as it is done in PSK or Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM). The symbol stream modulates the carrier, and the so-obtained signal is transmitted over the channel. To detect this type of signal on a multipath-distorted acoustic channel, a receiver must employ an equalizer whose task is to unravel the intersymbol interference. A block diagram of an adaptive decision-feedback equalizer (DFE) is shown in Figure 7. In this configuration, multiple input signals, obtained Fig 7: Multichannel adaptive decision-feedback equalizer (DFE) is used for high-speed underwater acoustic communications. It supports any linear modulation format, such as M-ary PSK or M-ary QAM. from spatially diverse receiving hydrophones, can be used to enhance the system performance. The receiver parameters are optimized to minimize the mean squared error in the detected data stream. After the initial training period, during which a known symbol sequence is transmitted, the equalizer is adjusted adaptively, using the output symbol decisions. An integrated Doppler tracking algorithm enables the equalizer to operate in a mobile scenario. This receiver structure has been used on various types of acoustic channels. Current achievements include transmission at bit rates on the order of one kbps over long ranges (10-100 nautical miles) and several tens of kbps over short ranges (few km) as the highest rates reported to date. VI Mobile UWSNs and Ground- Based Sensor Networks A mobile UWSN is significantly different from any ground-based sensor network in terms of the following aspects: Communication Method: Electromagnetic waves cannot propagate over a long distance in underwater environments. Therefore, underwater sensor networks have to rely on other physical means, such as acoustic sounds, to transmit signals. Unlike wireless links among ground-based sensors, each underwater wireless link features large latency and low-bandwidth. Due to such distinct network dynamics, communication protocols used in ground-based sensor networks may not be suitable in underwater sensor networks. Specially, low-bandwidth and large-latency usually result in long end-to-end delay, which brings big challenges in reliable data transfer and traffic congestion control. The large latency also significantly affects multiple access protocols. Traditional random access approaches in RF wireless networks might not work efficiently in underwater scenarios. Node Mobility Most sensor nodes in ground-based sensor networks are typically static, though it is possible to implement interactions between these static sensor nodes and a limit amount of mobile nodes (e.g., mobile data collecting entities like mules which may or may not be sensor nodes). In contrast, the majority of underwater sensor nodes, except some fixed nodes equipped on surface-level buoys, are with low or medium mobility due to water current and other underwater activities. From empirical observations, underwater objects may move at the speed of 2-3 knots (or 3-6 kilometers per hour) in a typical underwater condition [2]. Therefore, if a network protocol proposed for ground-based sensor networks does not consider mobility for the majority of sensor nodes, it would likely fail when directly cloned for aquatic applications. Although there have been extensive research in groundbased sensor networks, due to the unique features of mobile UWSNs, new research at almost every level of the protocol suite is required. VII

Friday, January 17, 2020

Fast Fit Case Study

1. FastFit Case Study FastFit Sporting Goods is a successful New England regional supplier of sporting goods to the high end consumer market. They sell an exclusive selection of equipment and apparel to men and women who exercise and pursue outdoor activities on a regular basis. They operate five (5) upscale retail stores in the New England market that offer a high level of customer attention, with a headquarters (HQ) is in Burlington, Massachusetts, and a single warehouse, distribution, and eCommerce fulfillment center in Haverhill, Massachusetts.Most of their products are purchased from two suppliers, Winter Gear Distributers outside of Providence, Rhode Island, and Boston Fitness Supplies in Marlboro, Massachusetts. FastFit has expanded successfully in the New England area over the past five years. However to expand nationally as a major retailer, they need to improve the scalability of their operations (stores and warehouses). A key part of their strategy is to leverage informati on systems to automate and improve operations, to strengthen management controls, and to enable significant growth while maintaining the â€Å"high touch† customer experience.A diagram of their complete non-Web based operations follows. See figure 1. [pic] Figure 1: A Schematic diagram of FastFit Sporting Goods Operations The Initial Set of Case Study Questions The simple system diagram below may be used to answer the following questions. The questions should be answered using your common sense and knowledge of retail processes because we have all bought things at a store. Be specific about the items of information, where they are captured, stored and used.How the information flows or is moved within FastFit may be shown by the student adding labeled arrows added to the diagram below. See figure 2. Figure 2: Starting Point for a System Diagram of FastFit Business Information Flows A General Question 1. Mark the main flows of goods and money in the diagram (above). Use single headed arrows and employ a key or table of descriptive elements to explain your answer. Customer Questions (focus on the customer and FastFit process flows, i. e. the front end of the diagram) 2. ) List the specific items of information that are usually gathered at the POS (Point of Sale terminal or cash register) and recorded when a customer checks out (excluding obtaining the identity of the customer which is covered in Q3)? b) What are three important uses of this information at the store by the store manager and by headquarters management – a total of six uses? 3. a) What are some ways to obtain the identity of the customer at the POS and to associate this â€Å"identity† with more detailed information about the customer? b) What business actions could FastFit then take based upon this additional information? . Assume HQ is responsible for replenishing inventory at the stores. a) What information is needed and how is it used to decide what to send to each store? b) Where does the information come from? c) Why didn’t we have each store decide what to order from the warehouse? Supplier Questions (focus on the FastFit and Supplier process flows, i. e. the back end of the diagram) 5. a) Draw a system diagram that shows the key information and product flows between FastFit (HQ and Warehouse) and a supplier, including the steps for ordering and invoicing and label each flow descriptively.This diagram will have three circles. b) Compare your drawing with the diagram showing the flows between the customer and the store and explain why the former is more complicated. 6. Assume that FastFit headquarters receives and pays invoices from suppliers. a) How do they decide whether to pay and how much to pay? b) From where do they get the information to make this decision? eCommerce Set of Case Study Questions 7. Describe three geographic locations from which customers can submit orders and any information technology components customers would need (on their end) to accomplish this ordering activity. Location |Information Technology Component | |Home |Server | | |Desktop | | |Laptop | | |Routers | | |Web Server Application | |Road / Anywhere |Smart Phones | | |Web | |Work |Laptops | |School |Routers | | |Web Server Application | 8. a) Describe the information technology components FastFit needs to interact with customers on the web. [Hint: Locate a detailed explanation of e-commerce system platforms in the course textbook and/or web search. ] b) At what geographic location within FastFit would you place these information technology components and why? a) |IT components | |Application providers for the purchase and sale of goods |Software applications | | |Web software | | |Security software | | |Database | |Technology infrastructure providers that enables e-commerce |Routers | | |Storages | | |Servers (web and commerce) | | |Data centers | | |Hardware | | |Networks | from MD PowerPoint session 20 9. FastF it is planning to invest significantly in its e-commerce platform to increase online ordering. Describe three technology features/capabilities that should be included in the platform and provide business justifications for each feature. |Technology feature/capability |Description |Business Justification | |Browser |Program that a user uses to interact with web|Users have access to the Business from | | |servers on the internet |anywhere.Increase costumer contact with | | | |store. | | | |Improve operations by making store more | | | |accessible to customer. | |Web Server |Program that communicates with many browsers |Allows for multiple users to interact with | | |at the same time using http, by processing |the web page at the same instant. | |and responding to their requests |Increase number of transactions being | | | |processed at the same time | |Commerce Server |Computer that provides a business with |Allows transactions to be completed through | | |web-based programs that disp lay products, |the web. | | |support online ordering, implements a |Enables consumers to receive information | | |shopping cart, record and process payments, |about products.Automates inventory | | |and interface with inventory-management |management | | |applications | | *from MD PowerPoint session 20 10. a) What does the Haverhill order fulfillment center do? b) Describe the information needed at the warehouse to provide fulfillment services. c) Describe the information created or changed/updated during the course of an e-commerce business transaction. a) i. Warehousing ii. Order processing iii. Finding the item ordered iv. Packing order v. Shipping it to the right address b) Fulfillment Service |Information Needed | |Warehousing |Inventory information | | |Warehouse capacity | | |Warehouse organization | | |Suppliers information | |Order Processing |Order Information | | |Item ordered and amount ordered | | |Inventory information (items and quantity) | | |Consumer Informat ion | |Finding the item ordered |Warehouse structure information | | |Item ordered code | |Packing order |Order Information | | |Ending inventory Information | |Shipping order to right address/store |Consumer Information | | |Delivery/Shipping Information | *Vendorseek. com c) i. Costumer Address for delivery ii. Order payment confirmation iii. Consumer Confirmation of order iv. Consumer email contact v. Consumer confirmation of delivery date

Thursday, January 9, 2020

Scenario Analysis Funding the Homeless - 775 Words

Background and Issue Issue takes place in a middle class suburban area in the NE part of the United States. The central argument surrounds a building planning board that is tasked to bring a federally funded homeless shelter into a suburban township area. Advocates for the shelter have already done preliminary work and presented plans for a 200 room, hotel style arrangement that provides privacy, showers, etc. Many of these individuals are working, but women and children of a class known as the working poor. Those opposed are worried about a number of emotional issues: crime, property values, perception of the area around the hotel, etc. The scenario surrounds the Board meeting that will decide the fate of the shelter. Members of the Board and their Psychogramographics Name Demographics Psychographics Henry White Male Worked all his life, believes homeless just need a handout and are too lazy to receive a HS education. Kelly White Female Questions whether it is societys job to take care of women who have children they have trouble supporting. Larry White Male Does have compassion for the poor and homeless to help them get on their feet. Jon Asian Male (Korean) Worried about property values and economic issues. Adem Asian Male (East Indian) Questions allocation of Federal funds, would rather they go to schools. Analysis Only one member of the group is even open to the idea of the Homeless Center. To even make a case, one would need to appeal toShow MoreRelatedCombating Homelessness With Affordable Housing1338 Words   |  6 Pagesaffordable options, thus causing them to languish in homeless shelters, transitional housing, or the streets. Homelessness is a costly and inadequately handled societal problem. The cost of homelessness comprises prison, hospitalization, medical treatment, police intervention and emergency shelters. 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Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Fore Casting - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 7 Words: 2115 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Argumentative essay Did you like this example? Forecasting is the estimation of the value of a variable (or set of variables) at some future point in time. Forecasting exercise is usually carried out in order to provide an aid to decision-making and in planning the future. Typically all such exercises work on the premise that if we can predict what the future will be like we can modify our behaviour now to be in a better position, than we otherwise would have been, when the future arrives. [1] Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Fore Casting" essay for you Create order The organization I have chosen for the task 1 of the assignment is described below Introduction: Kamran Ahmad Marble Industries (KAMI), located at the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) Pakistan. They deal in different types of marbles found in different areas of Pakistan. They not just provide marble tiles to local industries / clients but also have business relation / partnership with some other companies at UAE, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. They get their raw products from some remote areas of Pakistan like Buner, Swat and Tribal areas of Pakistan. Fund Sources for KAMI: Following are the available funds sources for KAMI Take loan from banks Get funds from marble association Get loan from other business parties Take Loan from Banks: In Pakistan different banks provide loans to industries on different terms and conditions and interest rates. But in recent years some banks from gulf have opened their branches in Pakistan with Islamic banking (as interest in prohibited in Islam). Also a bank owned by Germany The Bank of Khyber in North West of Pakistan provides loans without any interest. Meezan Bank which is a premier Islamic banking system and completely interest free banking, also provides loans for industries. So in banking sector KAMI has two choices to get loan i.e. loan with interest or loan without any interest. Funds from Marble Association: The marble association (association of all marble industries in Pakistan) also has a funding system to help its members in the time of need. KAMI owner is the president of marble association Northern zone, so they have advantage of taking the Helping fund from marble association, because they are trustworthy and having good reputation in the market. Loan from other Business Parties: As a cultural value, in this area of Pakistan people often help each other financially in the time of need, even competitors in market help one another financially because it is consider Good in the culture and tradition. So they can also loan from some of the good established marble parties in their area, because they have good repute in the area and a well known and respected family Appraisal of Source: I will recommend KAMI to get helping aid from marble association, because their company and its management is very active in the marble association activities, they always remain in front for the rights of marble industries in the courts and other public bodies offices, so they will face no problem in getting the required funds with zero interest rate from marble association. Introduction Task 2 In this task a report is required to have an investigation of two competing projects in public and private sectors, use any of the appraisal techniques and justify your choice, then taking a project from public sector and doing post audit appraisal and at the end making recommendations for that organization on that project. I have taken following two projects for the same company that in task 1 Kamran Ahmad Marble Industries and following are the two competitive projects. Project 1: Purchasing Heavy truck for supply of raw materials to KAMI Project 2: Installing new machinery (Bridge cutter and vertical cutter) to increase the productivity of the company. Project 1: Purchasing Heavy truck for supply of raw materials to KAMI Estimated project cost: 3500000 Cost of Capital: 10 % Project run time: 5 years The NPV for project 2 is positive Suggestion for KAMI As the NPV for project 1 is negative and NPV of project 2 is Positive, so I will suggest KAMI to go for project 2 instead of investing money in project 1. Reasons for using NPV Following are the advantages and disadvantages of NPV and the reason that I choose NPV instead of any other financial measurements method. Advantages Consistent with shareholder wealth maximization: Consider both magnitude and timing of cash flows Indicates whether a proposed project will yield the investors required rate of return Tells whether the investment will increase firm value or not Consider the risk of feature cash flow through cost of capital. Disadvantages Many people find it difficult to work with a dollar return rather than a Percentage return Require an estimate cost of capital in order to calculate the net present value. Post Audit Appraisal and Recommendations Comparisonof the actualincomeyielded by acapital projectwith the income projected at the time ofproject appraisal A post audit determines if a companys policies and procedures have been properly followed. The test may be to verify if paid invoices have necessary documentation and approvals. In an audit performed by a public accountant, period that exists between the completions of the auditors field work and the issuance of the report on the financial statements. During this period, the auditor is in constant contact with the client while the audit report is prepared and the final review of the drafted financial statements takes place. The auditor has a responsibility to disclose subsequent events so that the financial statements are not misleading. The post audits effectiveness is to do proactive measures including the clarity in policies and guidelines are the effective thing in prost audit. The post audit best efficiency is related to claims for pricing payments and allowance claims and most importantly for calculating the companys payment dues. The growing trend reduced cycle time to verify transaction accuracy would have for reaching implication in post audit. Social Accounting It is a framework used for monitoring, evaluation and accountability to stakeholders both internal and external of the organization. The social accounting is used investigate organizations performance on social, environmental and economic objectives, and ensure that it is working in accordance with its values. In the private sector, social accounting is aligned with corporate social responsibility. The public sector is the part of economic and administrative life that deals with the delivery of goods and services by and for the government, whether national, regional or local. The organization of the public sector can take several actions, including: Direct administration funded through taxation, the delivering organization generally has no specific requirement to meet commercial success objective, and production decisions are determined by government. The amount of risk in public sector is, Company need to follow the government policies. The local people Need to follow the Legal procedure. Pressure from local government bodies, Need to handle the political issues, Introduction to Task 3 In this task the requirement is the comparative financial performance of three companies AA, BB and CC, the last two companies are the wholly owned subsidiaries of CC. in this task its is required to analyse the given information and produce a report for the management of company CC by showing the comparative financial performance of AA and BB. Also comment on the potential limitations of such comparison, by considering issues like common management information system for both subsidiaries. Also provide information on whether there is sufficient evidence to conclude that BB managers lack competency in making financial decisions. Comparative Analysis Following are the various methods available for comparative analysis ROCE Profit Margin Asset Utilisation Liquidity Risk (gearing) Growth (turnover, profit, and capital employed) ROCE is used infinanceas a measure of thereturnsthat a company is realizing from itscapital employed. It is commonly used as a measure for comparing the performance between businesses and for assessing whether a business generates enough returns to pay for its cost of capital. ROCE analyses give companies insight into the utilizing of the capital to generate revenue. It is required that ROCE amount should be higher than the borrowing amount. In the provided data the subsidiary BB is having a very high return on capital as compared to AA. Profit Marginornet profit ratioall refer to a measure ofprofitability. It is calculated by finding thenet profit as a percentage of therevenue. In Profit Margin low profit margin indicates a low margin of safety, higher risk that a decline in sales will clear the profit and results in net loss In the case of the BB subsidiary. Asset utilization is the ratio between net sales and total assets. It provides understanding on how to utilize the organization assets by looking at total turnover and total assets. The higher the asset utilization the lower the investment cost. And yield better results each year for company. Liquidity is the businesss ability to meet its payment obligations, in terms of possessing sufficient liquid assets, and to such assets themselves. Advantages and Limitation of Comparative Analysis Comparative analysis have many advantages in providing insight to the management of companies into the positive and negative aspect of their investment in different projects, but it also have some limitations due to the internal and external factors. Following are some of them The comparative analysis provides the organizations an understanding of profit ratio it provide information that organization have plenty or resources to pay their expenses and whether shareholders are aware of the financial condition of the company. It also helps organizations to compare their business with other competitors. Credit analysts, those interpreting the financial ratios from the prospects of a lender, focus on the downside risk since they gain none of the upside from an improvement in operations. They pay great attention to liquidity and leverage ratios to ascertain a companys financial risk. To have looked at the operational and profitability ratios the Equity Analysis is important. To determine the future profits that will accrue to the shareholder. Financial ratio analysis is well-developed and the actual ratios are well-known, practicing financial analyses often develop their own measures for particular industries and even individual companies. Analysts will often differ drastically in their conclusions from the same ratio analysis. Is BB management lack competency in making financial decisions? The provided data and the above analysis show that the AA organization is applying monopoly principle and runs under local authorities. By having desired contract the companys profitability can be easily assumed. And they cannot increase their rate of investment as the revenue cannot automatically be generated. BB is completely different from AAs organization they have several issues like labor, cost of running the organization and they have to handle the continuity of their previous services. It is very difficult to compare both the organization AA and BB because the cost expenses are completely different. The subsidiary BB managers lacks efficiency on making financial decisions as the calculation does show the considerable results while appraising companys performance. BB is losing revenue, because it has got competitive market. So while competing in such a competitive market the BB management is lacking in taking financial decisions which is shown by above data and the competitive analysis. AA is an organization which runs on the monopoly principle and it is in regulatory body and it runs under local authority. By having desired contract the companys profitability can be easily assumed. And they cannot increase their rate of investment as the revenue cannot automatically be generated. On the other side we cannot compare both the organization AA and BB because the cost expenses are completely different (method of calculation and depreciation). The process to compare other business in the same sector. Here we are going to make external benchmarking it means to compare through the trade association and the industry itself, external also includes comparing through activity. Activities like learn from someone, who is very good in some other business, try to imitate the best from the performer, and looking at the management itself. As a conclusion, above information shows BB managers lacks efficiency on making financial decisions as the calculation does show the considerable results while appraising companys performance. AA subsidiary is almost the public sector company; the company operates on the long term fixed contract. Even AA is not performing up to the expectation. It is reliable on having the contract.BB is losing revenue, because it has got competitive market. Above maid analyses was made by having only the two years (2004, 2005) finance datas and I cant tell if the previous years more or on the contrary less successful and productive. So I cant provide an accurate objective analysis of both subsidiaries AA and BB. But by doing the given 2 years financial calculation, BB subsidiaries are losing their business. References https://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/post-audit.html https://people.brunel.ac.uk https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates