Reuters: Principles Of Trust Or Propaganda?

This paper examines a sample of fifty news-oriented articles related to the Middle East conflict published on the Reuters proprietary websites across a three month study window. A combination of Ethnographic Content Analysis and primary survey data are employed to identify, code and validate reporting/ethical failures in the articles, i.e., propaganda, logical fallacies, and violations of the Reuters Handbook. Tests are run to measure for 1) shifts in audience attitudes and support for the primary belligerent parties in the Middle East conflict following readings of the sample and, 2) associations between the reporting/ethical failures and audience attitudes/support. Over 1,100 occurrences of reporting/ethical failures across forty-one subcategories are identified and a significant shift in audience attitudes and support following article readings is observed. Significant associations are found between 1) the use of atrocity propaganda and audience favorability/sympathy toward the Arabs/Palestinians; 2) the use of the appeal to pity fallacy and audience favorability/sympathy toward the Arabs/Palestinians; and 3) the use of atrocity propaganda, appeal to pity and appeal to poverty fallacies, and audience motivation to take supportive action on behalf of the Arabs/Palestinians. It is inferred from the evidence that Reuters engages in systematically biased storytelling in favor of the Arabs/Palestinians and is able to influence audience affective behavior and motivate direct action along the same trajectory. This reflects a fundamental failure to uphold the Reuters corporate governance charter and ethical guiding principles

Vapor-liquid equilibrium at low pressures : correlation of binary and prediction of multicomponent data

The Wilson equation is chosen as typical of the new correlations for activity coefficients gaining wide distribution for use in the correlation and prediction of vapor-liquid equilibria today. Vapor liquid equilibrium data for 247 binary systems have been regressed against each of ten (10) objective functions and values of the Wilson energy parameters obtained. For the typical binary system, a wide variation of the Wilson energy parameters are observed when different objective functions are used with the given set of binary data. These are each examined with respect to their capability to correlate multicomponent vapor-liquid equilibrium data for seventy-three (73) systems. In general the best results are obtained from the objective function that minimizes the relative error between the calculated and experimentally derived values of the binary activity coefficients. The number of parameter sets for the Wilson equation that can be obtained from a given set of binary vapor-liquid equilibrium data is also examined. It is proven mathematically that only one set of Wilson energy parameter values exist for the case of positive deviations from Raoult\u27s Law; however, as many as three parameter sets can be derived from experimental data for the case of negative deviations from ideal behavior. The criteria with which to determine the number of such sets is developed. Best correlation of both binary and multicomponent vapor-liquid equilibrium data appear to result from the set of Wilson energy parameters that are smallest in absolute value

Do Active Mutual Funds Mimic The Index During A Bull Market?

This study seeks to determine whether during a bull market, large actively-managed mutual funds 1) mimic the composition of the S&P 500 Index and 2) mimic the risk attributes of the S&P 500 Index.  Employing a panel data set of volatility and MPT statistics for 200 large, actively-managed US equity and hybrid debt-equity mutual funds between 1995 and 2000, we find no evidence of fund portfolio composition converging toward that of the index.  Indeed, as the bull market advances, fund managers move progressively away from holding securities comprising the S&P 500 Index.  Our results also reveal levels of fund systematic risk that are lower and significantly different to that of the S&P 500 Index, while fund pseudo-industry risk levels (as proxied by technology holdings) are not significantly different to that of the S&P 500 Index.  This suggests that managers mirrored S&P 500 Index technology weights with the purchase of technology firms outside of the Index

Qualitative Analysis In Financial Studies: Employing Ethnographic Content Analysis

To the extent that relevant variables are well-defined or readily observable, empirical studies in finance typically employ classical investigative techniques and positivistic methodologies to measure and analyze financial phenomena.  Many unanswered questions in modern finance however, rely critically on insight into the behavior or intentions of various agents, for which there may be no easily discernible proxy that lends itself to traditional quantitative analysis. Alternatively then, Patton (1990) notes that qualitative methods may be employed to discover “what people do, know, think, and feel”.  A particularly promising qualitative approach,  recently introduced into financial studies to discover the encoded investment objectives and activities of fund managers, is Ethnographic Content Analysis (ECA).  In this paper, we review the literature on ECA and offer an instructional set on the use of ECA in an analysis of official disclosure documents

Valuing Technology Stocks With EVA: A Bridge Too Far?

The Economic Value Added (EVA™) framework has engendered a great deal of attention from American and European companies, consultants, accounting firms, security analysts, fund managers and the media for its purported utility in accurately valuing public companies.  In 1996, for example, Fortune Magazine trumpeted that hundreds of companies had recently “renounced” earnings per share in favour of EVA™ as a means of measuring performance and driving stock prices.  During the 1990s, investors witnessed unprecedented growth in US equity prices, particularly for technology firms.  This case study critically examines the Economic Value Added EVA™ framework and attempts to rationalize the bull market in technology stocks by employing EVA™ to estimate the intrinsic value of a large proportion of the US technology sector as of 1999 and comparing this figure with contemporaneous market values for the same.  We find a marked disparity between EVA™ estimates of Present Value and actual market value for the sector

Single-stage, low-noise, advanced technology fan. Volume 4: Fan aerodynamics. Section 1: Results and analysis

Test results at design speed show fan total pressure ratio, weight flow, and adiabatic efficiency to be 2.2, 2.9, and 1.8% lower than design goal values. The hybrid acoustic inlet (which utilizes a high throat Mach number and acoustic wall treatment for noise suppression) demonstrated total pressure recoveries of 98.9% and 98.2% at takeoff and approach. Exhaust duct pressure losses differed between the hardwall duct and treated duct with splitter by about 0.6% to 2.0% in terms of fan exit average total pressure (depending on operating condition). When the measured results were used to estimate pressure losses, a cruise sfc penalty of 0.68%, due to the acoustically treated duct, was projected

MeV ion scattering from thin Si single crystals: A novel approach to interface studies

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Spatial Corrections of ROSAT HRI Observations

X-ray observations with the ROSAT High Resolution Imager (HRI) often have spatial smearing on the order of 10 arcsec (Morse 1994). This degradation of the intrinsic resolution of the instrument (5 arcsec) can be attributed to errors in the aspect solution associated with the wobble of the space craft or with the reacquisition of the guide stars. We have developed a set of IRAF/PROS and MIDAS/EXSAS routines to minimize these effects. Our procedure attempts to isolate aspect errors that are repeated through each cycle of the wobble. The method assigns a 'wobble phase' to each event based on the 402 second period of the ROSAT wobble. The observation is grouped into a number of phase bins and a centroid is calculated for each sub-image. The corrected HRI event list is reconstructed by adding the sub-images which have been shifted to a common source position. This method has shown approx. 30% reduction of the full width half maximum (FWHM) of an X-ray observation of the radio galaxy 3C 120. Additional examples are presented.Comment: AandA latex (6 pages with 7 embedded postscript figures). Scheduled for publication in the 1 Dec issue of Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Serie