Portfolio Risk Utilising a Value at Risk Methodology Dissertation

Portfolio Risk Utilising a Value at Risk Methodology - Dissertation Example my gratitude and thanks to my supervisor Tony Hall and course leader Jason Law whose insight and experience showed me the right path and guidance to complete this project. My acknowledgment would not be complete if I miss to thank other tutors and classmates who were the source of learning and enjoyment throughout my stay at the university. Table of Contents Table of Contents 6 CHAPTER 1 8 INTRODUCTION TO CHINA 'S STOCK MARKET 8 1.1 Introduction 8 CHAPTER II 12 1.2 Stock Market Development from 1922 12 1.3 Institutional Facts about the Chinese Stock Industry 12 1.3.1 Stock market structure 12 1.3.2 Share structure 13 1.3.3 Investors 14 1.3.4 Listing and de-listing 14 1.3.5 Trading mechanism 16 1.4 Value at Risk 17 1.4.1 Definition of Value at Risk 18 1.5 Existing Approaches in Value at Risk Estimation 21 1.5.1 Traditional Historical Simulation 21 1.5.2 Variance-Covariance Approach 23 1.5.3 GARCH Model Building Approach 25 1.5.4 Monte Carlo Simulation 25 Chapter 3 28 Value at Risk Methodology 28 Introduction 28 1.2 Portfolio VAR 31 1.3 Historical Simulation 33 1.4 Monte Carlo Simulation 34 1.5 VAR Strengths and Weaknesses 35 CHAPTER IV 37 DYNAMIC CORRELATOIN OF CHINESE STOCK 37 4.1 Introduction 37 4.2 Data and Descriptive Statistics 40 4.2.1 The Data 40 4.2.2 Summary statistics 41 4.3 The dynamic Correlation Coefficient Model 45 4.4 Empirical Estimations 48 CHAPTER V 51 CONCLUSION 51 Effects of policy change 51 Conclusion 53 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO CHINA 'S STOCK MARKET 1.1 Introduction With China's rapid transition to a modern economy, all of its business sectors and industries are undergoing dynamic changes. A substantial amount of working capital is required by business firms, and economic development in China demands rapid advancement of capital...With China’s rapid transition to a modern economy, all of its business sectors and industries are undergoing dynamic changes. A substantial amount of working capital is required by business firms, and economic development in China demands rapid advancement of capital markets. In retrospect, the first stock in China, Shen BaoAn, was issued in 1983. By then China had no securities exchange, and stock trading activities were operated virtually underground (Chen and Sun, 2003). It was three years later, on September 26, 1986, that the JinAn Business of CICB Shanghai Trust and Invest Company began to trade its stocks over the counter. Nevertheless, the local secondary market trading was still unofficial and unorgani zed (Gordon and Li, 1991). After several years’ effort and a learning period, the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenshen Stock Exchange were formally established on December 19, and December 1, 1990, respectively. Since their establishment in the early 1990s, developing Chinese stock markets have received a great deal of attention from both domestic and international practitioners and researchers. The main reason for this is that, before 1982, the Chinese economy was a central planning system in which no private business was allowed, and there was no market-oriented banking system. The constitution Act in 1982 lifted the ban on private business activities (Shirai, 2002), allowing a large number of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and banks to be privatized and incorporated.

Applied linguistics Essay Example for Free

Applied linguistics Essay Linguistics, though one of the youngest behavioral sciences, has a background extending over several millennia. During this period scholars with various interests have concerned themselves with language. Some of the most readable treatises on language were produced by the Greeks and Romans, such as Plato’s Cratylus and Quintilian’s advice to an orator. Much of our terminology was devised in the course of this earlier concern. Any of introductions to linguistic cannot, therefore, limit itself to one school; rather it must present the general principles applied in the study of language. A knowledge of earlier studies of languages in particularly important at a time when the vigorous transformationalist school has affirmed its relationship with traditional grammar. Any discipline is based on earlier work, though scientific schools are rarely capable of advancing their subject on all fronts. Thus, nineteenth-century linguistics made particular advances in phonetics and historical linguistics. In the first four decades of this century linguistics contribute especially to refinements in phonological theory, while collecting data on exotic languages. Subsequent linguistics have devoted themselves especially to syntactic study and to the interrelations between linguistics and other behavioral sciences. Since the tempo of scientific research is being speeded up, it is not surprising that the transformationalist school is already becoming fragmented, with some of this member focusing on semantic study. This century therefore has seen a shift in emphasis from phonological to syntactic to semantic studies. At the same time, linguistics has become closely involved with the sciences specializing in human behavior. It is difficult to present in an elementary text all of the concerns of linguistics. Moreover, since linguistics is an empirical science, any elementary text must include a great deal of linguistic data, that is, examples of spoken language. The data included must be taken from the native languages of students. For a pedagogical treatment one must select material carefully because of the richness of language; therefore data from other languages can only be given as supplements to that of English. But students should use every opportunity to collect and study data from other languages as they acquired adequate techniques for assembling and analyzing linguistic material. In order to gain control of linguistics, the data of language must first 1. 1Aims for descriptive linguistics Descriptive linguistics aims to provide an understanding of language by analyzing in its various uses. Generally descriptive linguists deal with one language at a specific time, such as contemporary English. But to gain perspective, they also examine others, preferably those having different structures, such as Chinese, which lacks all inflections, or Japanese, which adds inflections in a regular manner, or Eskimo, which may combine the entities of a sentence into a word-like sequence. Linguists also draw on studies of human behavior; psychology for an understanding of the mental processes involved in the use of language; anthropology and sociology for an understanding of man’s behavior in the contexts in which man uses language and from pertinent fields of other sciences are formulated in grammars. This book is an introduction to the aims and procedures of descriptive linguistics, presenting at the same time some of the contributions of that study to the understanding of language. Like other behavioral sciences-for example, anthropology-linguistics is confronted with two major task is to acquire an understanding of the various languages spoken today or at any time in the history of man. To achieve an understanding of any one language is a great task, as the inadequacy of our grammars many indicate. Providing descriptions of the 5,000 or so languages in use today, as well as future; we may illustrate the extent of the work that needs to be done by noting that the most widely translated book, the Bible, has been translated into only just over a thousand languages. Many of these languages are little known; others are almost completely obscure. But even without knowledge of many languages and with only a seriously inadequate understanding of many others, linguistics must set out to fulfill task number two; to comprehend language as a phenomenon. This second task of linguistics will be our main concern. We will illustrate the aims and procedures involved in carrying out this task by talking our examples primarily from one language, English. As in most linguistic studies, the unit of language selected for linguistic analysis here is the sentence. Speakers of every language speak in sentences and interpret sentences as units. If they are literate, that is, if they display language by means of writing, they divide these units into segments; any English sentence is marked off first by punctuation marks, and is then broken up into words, which are further segmented into letters. Linguists also analyze sentences into smaller segments, as we will see, but with greater rigor than the general speaker. The aim of this linguistic analysis is to understand how speakers construct and interpret any selected sentence and eventually to account for language as a phenomenon of human behavior. Speakers of a language have the remarkable capability of constructing and interpreting sentences they have never encountered before. The sentence A machine chose the chords may have been produced here for the first time; yet no speaker of English has any difficulty interpreting it. Linguistics seeks to determinate the basis of this capability. In carrying out such study, a linguist is investigating human behavior. Linguistics is, accordingly, a behavioral science. Like other scientists, a linguistic limits his concern. A full understanding of any sentence would involve some knowledge of man’s mental processes-how language is stored in the brain, how it is perceived, how it is directed by the brain. Understanding any sentence would also involve knowledge of the society in which the sentence is produced-how for example; any speaker could assert that a nonanimate machine might select some arrangement of tones called a chord. These requirements for understanding language in detail call on so many sciences-biology, psychology, anthropology, sociology, among others-that specialties haven arisen within linguistics itself, notably phonetics, psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics. Thorough linguistic descriptions are fundamental to all such specialties, and accordingly descriptive linguistics is the basic discipline of linguistics. In descriptive linguistics various procedures have been devised to arrive at grammars, that is, to produce descriptions of a given language. For most purposes a linguist deals with the sounds of a sentence, using earlier example A machine chose the chords may indicate why the linguist uses transcriptions. Through various historical accidents the spelling sequence ch is used for three different sounds in this sentence: as in sheen; as in catch; [k] as in kiss. Unless a linguistic description identified these different sounds, an investigator of speech perception would be misled. As the transcription indicates, a linguist may also note a vocal patterning of the words that is different from a written patterning of the words. The indefinite article a may be as closely linked in speech to the syllable as is the second syllable of machine; the plural suffix in chords is [z] after [d], rather than [s] as after [t] in courts. In studying relationships of this kind, a linguist is not simply trying to sort out sounds, but he is also trying to determine segments that are grammatically significant. But like all scientists he must limit his goals and deal with one problem at time. As John R. Firth says: The study of the living voice of a man in action is a very big job indeed. In order to be able to handle it at all, we must split up the whole integrated behavior patter we call speech, and apply specialized techniques to the description and classification of these so-called elements of speech we detach by analysis. This book is an introduction to such techniques. In keeping with Firth’s statement, it presents these techniques in a sequence determined by pedagogical principles. Students acquiring these techniques must not assume that the sequence in which these principles are presented reflects directly the structure of language. In many ways Chapters 1 to 7 may be viewed as preliminary; a knowledge of their contents is essential for an understanding of the subsequent chapters, which deal with the procedures by which linguists attempt to understand language as a â€Å"whole integrated behavior pattern†. 1. 2The study of Language as a System of Symbols To achieve an understanding of any language, we rely heavily on an examination of our own language. But to put our own language into perspective, we need to contrast it with one or more other languages; for this purpose in this book we will primarily use Japanese. To survey the procedures of a linguist, we may examine any simple utterance, such as â€Å"Could you please tell me where the station is? † This sentence could be pronounced slowly or rapidly, with some effect on the transcription; we may record one utterance of it as 1. 2. 1Historical Linguistics We could study the sentence â€Å"Could you please tell me where the station is? † in two ways, either by examining its construction or the history of its components. If we were interested in a historical approach, we would note the form of the component tell, for example, in order English, which would be Middle English tellen, Old English tellan. We could relate Old English tellan to Old High German zellan, which became New High German zahlen ‘count‘, and even to other forms. Through such comparison we would note (1) differences in sound: English t versus German ts; (2) differences in form: English tell with no infinitive; (3) differences in meaning: Contemporary English tell is no longer used with the meaning ‘count’, as the German verb is, though (bank) teller preserves this meaning. The study of the development of language is referred to as historical linguistics. Historical linguistics presupposes a thorough description of the stages of development of the languages being studied. For example, a historical grammar of English is based on descriptive grammars of Old and Middle English as well as New English. Descriptive linguistics is therefore a prerequisite for historical linguistics. 1. 2. 2Descriptive Linguistics Dealing with the sentence â€Å"Could you please tell me where the station is? † we note again the inadequacy of the English spelling system for indicating the actual sounds of the language. On the one hand, the symbol e represents various sounds, as in please, tell, me, where. On the other hand, the same sound is spelled differently, as in please, me; the station. Moreover, there are important signals, such as the variations in stress, indicated by [‘? ~], and in pitch, indicated by, which are not represented in the English spelling system. Accordingly a transcription is essential. For Japanese as shorter comparable sentence is: For the Japanese sentence a transcription is even more essential than for English. Since conventional transliteration systems are close to usable transcriptions, we may follow one of these, the Hepburn system, in citing Japanese. Transliterated according to the principles of the Hepburn system, the sentence reads â€Å"Teishajo wa doko desu ka†. Comparing these two sentences, we can equate segments in English with those in Japanese. Any such segments that are recorded as independent entities in dictionaries we can call words. Of the English and Japanese segments station corresponds to â€Å"teishajo†, where to â€Å"doko†, and so on. The words station and â€Å"teishajo† are clearly oral symbols that correspond to things in the world around us. In somewhat the same way, all language consists of symbols. Japanese â€Å"doko† ‘what place’ is a noun, virtually as concrete as is station. But where we feel is less concrete; we interpret it not as a symbol with reference to things in the world around us but rather with reference to a set of possibilities in the linguistic system. An even less concrete symbol is the English pattern of pitch, as marked by which corresponds to the following contour: This intonation pattern contrasts with others, such as one with a final rise, which corresponds to the following contour: In the contrasting set of English intonations indicates that the speaker is marking a serious statement; indicates that the speaker is making a serious statement; indicates that he is expressing doubt. If someone asks the question â€Å"Where is the station† using the intonation pattern, he is seriously concerned with obtaining the information. If he uses the pattern, he shows incredulity; the meaning is? ‘Or how could you ask me where the station is? (We’re standing right in front of it. ). ’ The intonation pattern is then a symbol, much like a word. Other symbols are even less concrete, such as word order. The arrangement â€Å"You could tell me† contrasts with â€Å"Could you tell me†, and the contrast in order symbolizes different meanings to speakers of English. In this way language consists of symbols, some of which may be readily related to things in the outside world, other merely to other potential patterns in the language. It is through such symbolization that we can use language to communicate. Through symbolization language has meaning. 1. 3Symbols Determined by Relationships We have noted above that the functions of symbols are determinate by their relationships to other entities in the system. The meaning of station is circumscribed by other words possible in the same context: airport, school, supermarket, and so on. The meaning of â€Å"Could you tell me† is circumscribed by other possible arrangements, such as â€Å"You could tell me†, and so on. Throughout language the functions of symbols and the significance of linguistic entities are determined by their relationships to other entities in that language. And example from the simplest segment of language, its sound system, may provide an illustration. In English we have a variety of t sounds. Initially before stressed words, as in top, t is followed by a puff air; the typical pronunciation could be transcribed. After s as in stop there is no such puff of air, and the typical pronunciation could be transcribed. In spite of this difference in sounds speakers of English consider the two entities the same; in Chinese or Hindi, on the other hand, and are considered different. Identification in each of these languages results from the interrelationships of the sounds with others in the same language. In English and never occur in the same environment. There is on the one hand no word. (A preceding asterisk is used in linguistic texts to indicate entities that are not attested. ) There is also no English word. In contrast with some languages, such as Chinese and Hindi, the two sounds and never distinguish words in English. For this reason English speakers are not aware of any difference between the ts of top and stop. The two sounds are classed together in one set; they are varying members, or allophones, of the same phoneme, or sound class. The significance of two ts for the speakers results from their relationships in the English sound system rather than from the physical differences themselves. Japanese provides a further illustration. It too has a [t] sound in its phonological system, as we may illustrate with the brusque imperative from mate ‘wait’. But if the t stands before u, as in the indicative matsu, it is followed by an [s], in much the same way that the t of top is followed by an [h]. To understand the Japanese change of [t] to, you can compare the English pronunciation with for nature. For the Japanese the two sounds belong in one class; a Japanese speaker is no more aware of the physical difference between the two sounds and than an English speaker is of the difference between and. Again, the important consideration is relationship. A Japanese speaker always uses before [u], never; on the other hand, he always uses before [e a o], never. What seems different in another language is classed as the same because of relationships. In support of this statement about the patterning of languages we may note the behavior of speakers when they hear a different language. As with many terms referring to sports and recreation, Japanese borrowed touring from British English. Hearing the vowel as u, they interpreted the word as. From within their own phonological system the relationships between [t] and are such that they are exchanged automatically because of the following vowel. These examples of the role of sounds in language may illustrate how a symbolic system has values determined by relationships rather than by physical entities. The relationships, to be sure, are linked to physical entities. But from the externals alone, or, as they are often called, the overt, or surface, phoneme, we do not determine the value or the significance of the entities. Since the value depends on interrelationships that are not obvious on the surface of language, we refer to the essence of language or of any symbolic system as its deep or underlying structure. In examining languages as symbolic systems, comparisons are often made with simple communication systems, such as traffic signals. In these relationships are determined by color: Red means ? stop? , yellow ‘caution’, green ‘go’. Other characteristics of a given system of traffic signals are noncentral: Some systems have red above green; some have a larger lamp for red; the exact hue of red, yellow, or green may vary. Drivers take their signals from none of these nonessentials but rather from the relationships between the three colors; those of longest wavelength are interpreted to mean ? stop? , whether they are exactly 700 millmicrons in length, or whether the number of millimicrons varies slightly. In the same way a speaker of English identifies tin by its difference from pin, kin, thin, sin, and so on. The entities of language that convey meaning are called morphemes, units of from. The values of morphemes are determined by their relationships in any given language. English has a contrast between could and will, which yields a different meaning in â€Å"Could you please tell me? † as opposed to â€Å"Will you tell me? † The meanings may be determined from the patterns in which these morphemes occur. But again, relationships are central. We do not say *Must you please tell me? Although the sequence â€Å"Must you tell me? † is possible. The impossibility is determined by the relationships between please and must, which simply cannot co-occur in questions. It may be difficult to specify the meaning of must and please in order to demonstrate why they cannot co-occur in such sentence. But a native speaker of English simply does not form such a sentence. He knows the possible relationships of each word, and these relationships do not permit such a combined use of must and please in questions. In this way the word relationships determine their meanings. In sum, the meaning of any entity in a symbolic system results from its relationships with other entities; the total of such entities and their values make up a symbolic system used for communication, or a language. As with traffic signals, the reference of the entities is determined by agreement in a social group using the same language. In natural language the agreement results from convention. When we acquire our language, we learn the uses of its morphemes and words. But a symbolic system using other entities and other conventions may also be devised. Examples can be found in the colors of heraldry, which retain their meanings for flags, or in a selection of flowers, which has meaning in literary works such as Shakespeare’s. A simple example is given in Longfellow’s poem on Paul Revere. Two meaningful symbols were prearranged: One lantern in the church tower meant that the enemy was coming by land; two lanterns meant that they were coming by sea. Using lanterns, a symbolic system consisting of two entities, would be cumbersome; after the system’s single use Revere’s system was maintained only in literary tradition. But for a computer two entities, a positive and a negative charge, permit a sophisticated communication system; for these entities can be manipulated somewhat more readily than lanterns. In this way, symbolic systems of various types may be devised to effectively convey meaning for specific purposes. Human systems, in spite of surface differences that provide obstacles to communication, are alike in using entities of sound in various arrangements to convey meaning. To understand the operation of language, we must apply procedures that permit the discovery and description of, first, the surface structures of language and, second deep structures or underlying principles of language. An introduction to descriptive linguistics must discuss these procedures, although it is chiefly directed at indicating the results obtained in using them and at discovering the principles underlying language as a whole. 1. 4Discovery Procedures of Linguistics In setting out to describe any language, a linguistic collects a sample of data. His usable date make up a corpus, which he then analyzes for its entities of sound, form, and meaning. Since the phonological analysis is simplest to discuss, we deal with it first here to demonstrate linguistic method. In our illustration we may start with the earlier example â€Å"Could you please tell me where the station is? † To determinate entities in a given language, a linguist selects such sentence patterns, or frames, and explores various possible substitutions, for in determining possible substitutions, he determines the significant relationships. In order to be certain of avoiding error, the linguist should use entire sentences, for example, â€Å"Would you please tell me† versus â€Å"Could you please tell me? † or â€Å"Could they please tell me† versus â€Å"Would they please tell me? † and so on. But manipulating entire sentences is cumbersome; accordingly linguists generally use single words and look for contrasts among them. They are particularly concerned with pairs of words, such as pin versus bin. Any two words, or sequences, contrasting phonologically in only one item are called a minimal pair. In beginning an analysis of a new language, therefore, a linguist may point to objects, write down the phonological notation for them, and then proceed to describe the system of relationships he has found. Or if the informant, that is, the native speaker, is bilingual and the linguist knows one of the languages, he may use a list of everyday words to elicit the words of the unknown language. A simple substitution English frame may be taken from win. Segmenting from this frame the element ____________in, a linguist may attempt to find all possible sequences of initial consonant. For English he would eventually find the set in Figure 1: Figure 1 Since the initial entities contrast with one another, also in other substitution frames, such as ____at, they may be interpreted to be significant. The frame ______at in Figure 2 would provide further significant entities. Figure 2 As these words and the blank spaces suggest, eventually twenty-four contrasting consonants would be found for English. To describe these, their uses, and the sounds of any language, a linguist must deal with the study of speech sounds in general. This study is known as phonology. If the linguist deal with Arabic, for â€Å"Where is the station? † he might be given the sentence ‘the station where? ’ In this sentence he notes sounds that are not significant in English: [? ], the glottal stop;, a pharyngeal spirant; and the underlined sounds. To be prepared to deal with the sounds encountered in any language, a linguist must have a general understanding of speech sounds. The study of speech sounds is known as phonemics. Phonetics and phonemics make up the two subdivisions of phonology. In addition to sounds and phonemes a linguist looks for contrasts of form in language. An answer to the question â€Å"Could you please tell me where the station is?† might be Take the street over there. Another answer might be: This bus takes you directly to it. Examining such contrasts, a linguist finds sets like take, takes, took, taken, taking and compares them with similar sets, such as pass, passes, passed, passed, passing; sag, sags, sagged, sagged, sagging. Analyzing these, he finds central forms _____take; pass, sag ___and varying elements, for example, s, n, ing. There is a fundamental difference between phonemes and these elements, for the latter carry meaning. We cannot, for example, state meanings for the two elements of win ____w and in. But we can for take, pass, or sag, and for the following s, which has the meaning ‘third person singular subject’. Such entities that have meaning are called morphs; a class of morphs is a morpheme. For example, {Z} is the third singular present morpheme in English. Morphemes may have varying members, or allomorphs, like in passes, [S] in takes, and [Z] in sags. In studying the morphemes of language we must determine the entities and their arrangements. As for such study in phonology, we find suitable frames and determine entities that may occur in them, for example: A machine chose the chords. An accompanist chose the chords. A director chose the chords A machine chooses the chords. I choose the chords. Clearly, a language contains many more morphemes than phonemes. The study of morphemes is therefore highly complex. Various labels have also been given to the study of morphemes and their arrangements. The study of the forms themselves is often called morphology but also morphemics. The study of the arrangements of morphemes, words, and phrases in sentences is called syntax. A name used by some linguists for referring to both is grammar. But there are problems with these labels. The terms â€Å"grammar† is widely used to include phonology as well as morphology and â€Å"syntax†. For some linguists the two labels seem to have separated forms and their arrangements unnecessarily. Some linguists then use the name â€Å"syntax† as a label for both the study of forms and their arrangements. Because of these differences in usages, students will have to determine the use of these terms among individual linguists. In this book â€Å"grammar† will be used as a general term to embrace the study of sounds, or phonology, and forms, or morphology, and  their arrangements, or syntax. Morphology, as is traditional, will refer to two types of study of forms: inflection, which deals with the changes in large closely structured sets of words, such as the parts of speech; and derivation, which deals with smaller, less readily definable sets, for example, retake, takeoff, and so on. The elements detached and described in phonology are merely markers of meaning; those detached and described in morphology are carriers of meaning. Additional procedures are necessary to deal with meaning. These procedures are traditionally applied to words, which are defined for their meaning and listed in dictionaries or lexicons. Yet dictionaries primarily list synonyms, defining one word in terms of another, for example, horse as ‘Equus-caballus’, or where appropriate, though illustrations. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary includes illustrations to help define horse and other selected items, such as soup plate. But the illustrations are limited; there is none, for instance, for antelope. And for some words, for example, abstraction, dictionaries would fins illustrations difficult. Moreover, dictionaries do not deal with meanings conveyed through differences in intonation, for example, Horse? Horse! To deal with meaning in a general way, as is done with sounds, some universal criteria must be devised, such as features of meaning found in many languages. Some features of meaning are animateness or nonanimateness, human or nonhuman, male or female, and so on. If semantic features like these were used in definitions, users of a dictionary would not need to know the language for which it is written to determine meanings. The dictionary would accordingly be more general but also more abstract than are contemporary dictionaries. Semantic analysis for features parallels widely used phonological study of this kind, but it is just in its beginnings. We do not yet know whether there is a set of semantic features that universal in all languages. When such analyses, whether for sounds, forms, or meanings, are carried out, they must be done separately for each language. We have noted that corresponds to a phoneme in Chinese and Hindi, but in English it is only a variant of /t/ before stressed vowels. As another example we may note Italian . This is found in Italian before [g] as in lungo ‘long’ _____compare the in longer _____before [k] as in banca ___compare the in bank _____but not in other environments. Elsewhere, [n] is found. Accordingly in Italian is a variant of /n/. Its position in the Italian phonological system may be illustrated from the behavior of Italian speakers learning English. English words ending in, such as long and bang seem impossible for them, so they pronounce them with final [g], that is. To maintain the they moodily its phonological environment so that it is the same as in Italian. An example from syntax to illustrate the necessity of analyzing each language for its structure may be supplied by German. In German the sentence I see your car is â€Å"Ich sehe Ihren Wagen†. Comparing the two, one may assume that in both languages the verb (see and sehe) follows the subject when the latter is initial in sentences. But from modified forms of the sentence, such as I often see his car and If I see his car, the different syntactic principle of German becomes clear, for these sentences must read â€Å"Oft sehe ich seinen Wagen† and â€Å"Wenn ich seinen Wagen sehe†. These sentences demonstrate that the principles of word order in German are quite different from those in English; the position of the verb is not related to that of the subject but rather to other possible entities in clauses. In German independent declarative clauses the verb stands in second place, but in German subordinative clauses, it stands at the end. Accordingly the arrangement if the forms, and their significance, must be determined separately for English and German, as for every other language. Each language must be investigated independently for its patters of syntax as well as its phonological characteristics. Similarly, meaning relationships must be determined separately for each language. English know corresponds to German â€Å"kennen† when it has an animate object, to â€Å"wissen† when it has an inanimate object, and to â€Å"konnen† when the object is a skill, like a language. We cannot equate English know with these, just as we cannot equate English with Italian. Because of this property of language, we must analyze each language in terms of its own structure. 1. 5Formulation of Results: Display of Description In the course of the study of language the formulation of descriptions has become increasingly compact and precise. Before the development of linguistics sounds of language were often presented in alphabetical order in grammars in the Western tradition. But contemporary descriptions of language follow a linguistic format. Vowels are not listed in the sequence a, e, I, o, u but rather in accordance with a chart reflecting their linguistic significance. The consonants also are presented in accordance with their articulation: the labials p and b, dentals t and d, velars k and g, and so on, as illustrated in Figures 1 and 2 for _____in and ______at. Similarly, the syntax of a language is presented systematically and compactly. Rather than discursive statements like â€Å"A sentence is made up of a subject and a predicate†, a compact formula may be given, for example:. These formulas are called rules. For the initiated they make a description very precise; the symbolization, however, must be mastered, particularly the abbreviations and the use of signs to indicate relationships. Such grammatical formats may resemble mathematical essays. Yet the information in the rules, however compact, simply corresponds to descriptions presented in more discursive grammars. Far more fundamental than such externals is the underlying design of a grammar.

Traditional malaysian music

Traditional malaysian music INTRODUCTION: A BRIEF HISTORY OF TRADITIONAL MALAYSIAN MUSIC The history of Malaysian music needs to be viewed from the perspective of the old Malay world which covered Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Cambodia, along with parts of Thailand. Within this cultural entity, one can find numerous similarities of musical instruments and musical structures which are the result of a common cultural heritage moulded by musical elements from the West Asia, India and China In addition to the Indian and Islamic factors, Malaysian art forms have also been influenced by the countrys neighbours, particularly Indonesia and Thailand. Indonesia immigrants, especially Javanese and Bugis, along with Minangkabau, Achinese and other Sumaterans who are traditionally concentrated in the south-western part of the Malay Peninsula (ex: Johore, Malacca, Negeri Sembilan and Selangor) brought with them several of the performing arts which are now considered Malaysian (Ghouse Nasuruddin 1992). Among them are the Javanese wayang purwa, a form of shadow play which is different from those of Kelantan and Kedah; the ketoprak, a dance drama; kuda kepang, another traditional dance; and the angklung, a musical ensemble consisting of bamboo chime instruments. In addition, the Bugis brought to Terengganu the joget gamelan from the Riau Archipelago, and also the rodat from Acheh in Sumatera via Sambas in Borneo. The Malaysian performing arts in the northern part of the Peninsula have been greatly affected by Thais cultural influences. (Ghouse Nasuruddin 1992) In the wake of the decline of Majapahit during the course of the 14th century, the Thais started their move southwards and tried to assert their claim to over lordship of all the Malay Peninsula and forcing Malay Rulers to send ‘tribute to Ayuthia, and then later to Bangkok. Nevertheless, the rise of Malacca checked this southward expansion, and even after the fall of Malacca to the Portuguese in 1511, Thai influence was successfully confined to the three northern Peninsular Malay states of Kelantan, Kedah and Terengganu. The British helped in containing Thai influence to theses states as their own power and influence grew in the Peninsula. Finally in 1909 sovereignty over these four northern states (which now included Perlis) was formally handed over to the British by the Treaty of Bangkok. Nevertheless, for over 500 years these for northern states of the Peninsula Malaysia had been periodically subjected to Thai political and cultural influences. It is, therefore, not surprising to find elements of the Thai performing arts such as the Wayang Kulit Siam of Kelantan, the Wayang KulitGedek of Kedah and Perlis, and the menora dance drama within these states. ). (Terry E, Miller, Sean W 2008) The more recent major influence on the performing arts of Malaysia, was effected by the Portuguese are credited with the introduction of the violin and the guitar, while British cultural influence in Malaysia has been much more generalized. (Ghouse Nasuruddin 1992). In addition to popularizing western music, dance, and theatre, the Europeans have also directly influenced the development of semi-modern syncretic musical forms such as the asli, keroncong, ghazal and bangsawan, which combine both western and traditional musical elements. As a consequence of these influences, traditional Malaysian music exhibits multi-faceted musical styles which combine regional as well western and West Asian elements. For example, the musical styles and instruments of northern Peninsula Malaysia resemble those of the Thais, while those in the southern part of the Peninsula have incorporated Indonesian musical elements. Furthermore, all over Malaysia western musical influences are glaringly evident. Shadow puppet theatre The shadow puppet play (wayang kulit) is an ancient form of traditional theatre in Malaysia. The stories are told by a puppet master (dalang) who manipulates the puppets (called wayang) which are seen in shadows projected on a screen. (Ghouse Nasuruddin 1992). In this very old form of theatre a small ensemble plays the music to accompany the movement of puppets and events in the stories. In Malaysia there are four types of shadow puppet play, each with a specific name and distinctive style. These are Wayang Kulit Jawa (Javanese shadow puppet play), the Wayang Kulit Gedek (mixture of Thai and Malay folk styles of shadow puppet play), the Wayang Kulit Melayu (Malay court form of shadow puppet play) and Wayang Kulit Kelantan (Kelantanese shadow puppet play) The presence of foreign influences in puppets, repertoire or music does not in itself prove that the technique originates from the same source as these influences. Wayang Kulit Jawa The Wayang Kulit Jawa, Javanese influenced and originated in Indonesia and is performed today by the descendants of Javanese immigrants who settled in the southern state of Johor many decades ago. (Ghouse Nasuruddin 1992). In Malaysia, this form of shadow play still maintains the basic features of the Wayang Kulit Purwa of Indonesia, including the use of the stories, characters from the Mahabharata epic and the musical accompaniment of the Javanese Gamelan. The gamelan in this shadow play includes singers as well as xylophones, metallophones, and knobbed gongs just as in Indonesia. Malaysia maintains the basic feature of Wayang Kulit Purwa which consist the characteristic of Mahabharata epics and gamelan ensemble accompaniment. Wayang Kulit Jawa Wayang Kulit Gedek This Wayang Kulit Gedek, performed in the northern peninsular states of Perlis, Kedah and Kelantan, is called Nang Talung in Thailand. (Ghouse Nasuruddin 1992). This type of shadow puppet play originated in Southern Thailand and features small-sized, flat leather puppets. In Malaysia Wayang Kulit Gedek is performed by Thai and Malay peoples using a mixture of Thai and Malay language or just the southern Thai dialect, depending upon the audience. The stories feature local tales and episodes from the Ramayana epic (called the Ramakien in Thailand). The style of performance, music and puppet design show a distinct mixture of southern Thai and Malay traits including the small orchestra of drums, knobbed gongs, cymbals and bowed stringed instruments. In former times the wind instrument called pi or pi Jawa (a quadruple reed shawm) was included in this ensemble, and it is still often featured in the Wayang Kulit Gedek orchestra in Malaysia. However, today in southern Thailand the bow lutes called saw oo and saw duang (originating from the huqin family of Chinese bowed flutes) are preferred in place of the pi. The drums in this ensemble include klong khat, thon and klong khaek, similar to the Malay geduk, gedumbak and gendang,(Figure 1-3), respectively, a small pair of finger cymbals and the gong-chime called mong (2 knobbed gongs placed horizontally in a wooden box) are also used. WAYANG KULIT GEDEK Wayang Kulit Melayu Wayang Kulit Melayu, also named as Wayang Kulit Jawa, is strongly influenced by the Wayang Kulit Purwa of Indonesia. In the 19th and 20th centuries, this type of shadow play developed under the patronage of the sultan and existed as entertainment mainly for the aristocrats connected to the palaces of Kelantan and Kedah. In earlier times it was also performed in the Malay Sultanate of Patani. Today this Sultanate is no longer exists, but the location of the former kingdom is still located at southern Thailand. The stories of the Wayang Kulit Melayu focus on episodes of the Mahabharata epic, and the form and design of the puppets are nearly identical to the style of puppets from Java and Indonesia. During World War II this type of shadow puppet theatre was not performed; after the war years it was revived as entertainment for villagers without the patronage of the sultans. By the 1980s experienced puppet masters were difficult to find ant the Wayang Kulit Melayu. Today in Malaysia, this shadow play is rarely performed. The orchestra consists of several bronze gongs including a pair of large, hanging gongs called tetawak(Plate 1), a single knobbed horizontal gong called the mong, and a set of six or more small horizontal gongs called the canang(Plate 2). In addition, a pair of kesi cymbals (Plate 3), a pair of elongated barrel, double-headed drums called gendang (Plate 6) and one 2-stringed rebab is used. The rebab exhibits a mixture of Malay and Javanese features using only two strings in Javanese form, but with the body construction of the Malay rebab. A specific musical repertory existed for this type of shadow play, but today only a few pieces are still known. Wayang Kulit Melayu WAYANG KULIT KELANTAN The Wayang Kulit Kelantan is a folk theatre and is to be referred as Wayang Kulit Siam. This shadow puppets originally from and play around states in Kelantan, Kedah, Terengganu and formerly in Perak and Pahang. This is the most famous traditional puppet theatre among all in Malaysia. The former time, this performance is for ritual purpose, but today it been revived and to be performed as an entertainment. The Ramayana epic is the main focus for the trunk and stories for Kelantanese shadow play. The shadow play is one of the oldest theatrical art-forms in Asia and is found as far north as China and as far west as India and Turkey. Each country has its own form and style of shadow play, and there are variations within each of these forms. The home of the shadow play still has not been identified with certainty, as an evident from the controversies regarding its origin. According to Otto Spies, Sabri East Siyavusgil and William Ridgeway, it originated in India. Berthold Laufer, citing China as its home, tells of a legend about the later Han Emperor Kuang Wu Ti (25-57 A.D.) who instructed the court shaman to cast shadows on a screen in an effort to recall the spirit of his departed wife. Hazeu, on the other hand, credits Java as its place of origin because of the Javanese terminology in the Wayang Kulit Purwa. There are scholars who support the India origin of the shadow theatre because of the repertoire of the South-East Asian shadow plays which mainly portray episodes from the two Hindu epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata. But as noted by Alessio Bombaci, the shadow play could have emerged on its own in all these places – India, China and West Asia, and from these separate areas spread to other countries throug h economic, political and cultural interaction. However whatever its genesis, the shadow play doubt began as an animistic ritual. Even since its inception, the shadow play has been influenced by the religious beliefs prevalent in those countries where it has become established, to the extent that each variety reflects in microsm the religious history of its land of domicile. This is particularly true of the Malaysian shadow play whose rituals combine elements of animism, Hinduism and Islam. As we have already seen, through the ages Malaysia has been influenced by strong Indian, Chinese, Thai and Javanese cultural influences, with the result that her shadow plays bear striking resemblances to the Thai nang talung, the Khmer nang trolung, and the Javanese Wayang Kulit Purwa. The four types of Malaysia shadow play adapted from Javanese Wayang Kulit purwa, Wayang Kulit Melayu and Wayang Kulit Melayu both display similarities in structure, technique and performance with their Javanese counterpart. What differentiate is the one from the other of the configuration of the puppets and the nature of their musical ensembles. According to Patricia A, Sooi Beng T, the puppets of the Wayang KulitMelayu, which are highly stylized, have two moveable arms, while those of the less stylized Wayang Kulit Melayu have only one moveable arm. While a gamelan ensemble accompanies the Wayang KulitMelayu, the Wayang Kulit Melayu uses an indigenous musical ensemble. The repertoire of both the shadow plays consist of episodes from the Javanese and Malay versions of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, tales from the Panji cycles, the Islamic tales of Amir Hamzah, and local lore and legend. (Endon S 1999) Wayang Kulit Kelantanuses the technique of the Javanese Wayang Kulit Jawa to perform the Thai version of the Ramayana, as well as containing elements of local lore and legend. It differs from the Wayang Kulit Gedek, in the configuration of its puppets and in the nature of the accompanying musical ensemble. (Ghouse Nasuruddin 1992) The puppets of Wayang Kulit Kelantan are only seen in profile, puppets of Wayang Kulit Gedek uses combination of full-faced and profiled. Furthermore, the Wayang Kulit Kelantan musical ensemble is larger than that of Wayang Kulit Gedek. Wayang Kulit Kelantan Shadow Play Music There are seventeen repertoires in Kelantan shadow theatre and to be divided into four categories Ritualistic, emotional, designate individual character, and variety of occasions and designate action. Two examples are show below: Bertabuh and Tuk Maha Siku Mak Yong pieces are included in some of the repertoire in shadow play, for instance Lagu Yong Bertabuh, Sang Gendang, Pakyung Muda, and Lagu Barat. Younger troupe insert several modern pieces such as Lagu Joget Kelantan and Lagu Berlari Yong Muda, This is innovation of shadow play but was not appreciate by the older troupes to adulterate the music of shadow play; they only stick to their principle by performing traditionally pieces. For my opinion, innovation of shadow play is a significant issue for the sake of entertainment effect and also self satisfaction to make an improvement of music element aspect. Lagu Perang (war music) is the most common piece to be play Kelantan shadow theatre. It is show in the opening continuation as Lagu Bertabuh, combat in between two Dewa Panah (mystical warriors); the whole repertoire is all about fighting and battle in the play. A few pieces were often to be played in the shadow play are Lagu Hulubalang which indicates all warriors; it accompanies Sri Rama when he is ready for war, Hanuman, lesser princes, and all warriors. On my opinion, within the play proper of the shadow play performance, dramatic action is essential to be played in the music piece, but the structural format is remain a definite ritualistic opening of the actual play performance. Before the proper performance start, Dalang Tua (elder Dalang) will manipulate the puppets, sing and speaks every characters part and conduct the orchestra. The buka ponggang( opening ceremony) emerged in Mak Yong repertoire to portrayed his acts of connecting the real and nether worlds. Lagu Bertabuh is a start of informing the villagers that the play is to begin; in another way is also a conclusion of the ritualistic ceremony. Shadow play ensembles or orchestras and instruments The musical ensembles of the shadow play are percussion-dominated with either a solitary aerophone (wind) or a chordophone (string) instrument. An example for Wayang Kulit Kelantan ensemble has the following instruments: Idiophonic (Brass) Orotund material is to make to Idiophones instruments. Tetawak, kesi and canang occurs as a pairs in idiophone structure. The pair of tetawak (Plate 1) are knobbed gongs which hung between wooden racks, and padded beater is to hit the knob. The larger tetawak played lower pitch which calledâ€Å"tawak ibu† (mother tawak), tawak anak (child tawak) played the high pitch. Major third or perfect fifth is the tuning in between one set to another. The standardization of the tuning of tetawak so as canang is not the main important issue in music. Canang(Plate 2) is made of iron or metal, and it consists of two knobbed gongs, which hung horizontally on the wooden rack. The two gongs are hit by a pair of peddar beater, both gongs (anak canang and ibu canang ) played in different pitches( high and low pitch). Both gongs tuning interval may range from majors second to sixth. Kesi Cymbals (Plate 3) have a cup-like protruding with a small hole to enable to two cymbals to be connected. It is made of booze or iron. Resonant, ringing sound occurs when striking by player on the pair of cymbals. Unison are played in two pieces of timbres with canang, canang anak (high pitch) played ringing timbre whilst canang ibu (low pitch) played damped timbre. Kesi is similar to the western cymbal. Aerophonic (Wind) The serunai(Plate 4) is a double reed instrument which falls into the shawm category, varying in length from 12 to 18 inches and constructed from variation of woods such as batang lada, lebam and nangka. It is divided into three sections, namely kepala (head), batang (stem) and pipit (mouth-piece) .Daun lunta, a type of fern leaf, is used for the reed. Altogether there are eight sound holes on the serunai, seven on top and one below. It is adorned with intricate carvings and painted with various shades of colour. Membranophone (Percussion) Three types of drum constitute the membranophone category. The first is a pair of mother and son cylindrical-shaped geduk (Plate 7), with the mother being the larger of the two. Its dimension varies from 12 to 20 inches in length, with a front circumference between 30 to 37 inches and a back circumference of between 27 to 33 inches. The body of the geduk is mostly made from kayu nangka, but kayu sena or kayu merbau is sometimes used. Both sides are covered with cow or buffalo hide. The two legs located at one end of the geduk serve to tilt it towards the drummer to facilitate his playing, which is done with a pair of drum sticks. The pair of gendang (Plate 6), mother and son, are both barrel-shaped, with the mother being the larger of the two. The mother drum measures from 20 to 22 inches in length, and has a front circumference which varies between 24 to 33 inches and a back circumference of between 24 to 29 inches. The length of the gendang anak (son drum) varies from 19 to 22 inches with a front circumference of between 22 to 25 inches and a back circumference of between 19 to 22 inches. More often than not, the body of the gendang is made from kayu nangka rather than from kayu merbau. Both the front and back faces of the drum are covered with animal skins, cow hide for the mother drum and goatskin for the son drum. Rattan strands are coiled around one end of the body as an anchor to stretch the skin and vary the tension of its surface. The drums are played with both hands, one for striking each face. Texture and Form The texture of shadow theatre can be categories into melodic line played by serunai, variety of drum rhythmic pattern and bronze instruments play the element of gong. The form and structure in each piece of shadow play is determined and defined by colotomic structure or gong unit in the music. (Ghouse Nasuruddin 1992) .The gong unit is a time unit marked at its end by lowest pitches gong is the tetawak ibu, which is stuck at the last beat of gong unit. Gong unit is to be served as a basis element to be play in shadow plays and Mak Yong, multiples of two beats are based on the total number of colotomic structure. (Patricia A, Sooi Beng T 2004). Hence, in the gong unit, there are no 2- beat but continuously with 4-, 8-, 16-, 32-, 64- and so on. The gong unit is to be identifying by particular gong tone to played specific beat, as a result binary form is occurs in gong unit as the subdivision of internal gong to be played. Division of half occurs in first gong unit, for example gong tones occurs in beat 8 and 16 in a 16- beats gong unit. Another significant trait in 2-beat stress in the gong unit, firstly it( pulse weakly on the first beat and continue with a strong stress on the second beat. Patricia A, Sooi Beng T 2004) Repetition of the weak and strong stress in the repertoire is to gain the appropriate number of beat at variety gong unit. Canang gong chime play the 2-beat stress gong unit in shadow play, sometime ding-dong vocalized syllabus will be use as ding to be the first weak beat by canang anak (high pitch); whereas dong is to be played on the second strong beat by canang ibu ( low pitch). At the meantime, kesi cymbals are played to mark a resounding timbre in the weak beat and damped timbre in the strong beat. In the piece of Pak Dogol, the gedumbak and gendang anak produce specific 4-beat rhythmic patterns that combine to give a complete resultant rhythmic pattern for piece. Because the piece Pak Dogol based on 8-beat unit gong unit, the 4-beat resultant drum pattern is played twice in the time one complete gong unit. (Example 1) Scale Pentatonic, hexatonic and heptatonic are the main three scales in shadow play pieces. These three scales type are established in the repertory, hexatonic and heptatonic scales accent on five specific pitches which may contemplate a pentatonic core within the larger scale system. Semitone or whole tone are contains at all level of intervals. For example, third interval include in some scales. Sampling to be shown below: (Patricia A, Sooi Beng T 2004) DALANG Dalang can be found at padi harvest, the wayang season thus beginning of the rainy season. A popular dalang may expect to receive invitation to perform which will keep him occupied throughout the season, extending from about March to October. Dalang incomes (Amin.S 1972) entirely from the wayang and those that attempt to do so have a meager existence during the rainy season when they are forced to live on what has been saved during the wayang season which is seldom much. The dalang have a secondary occupation, and where the dalang does not enjoy much success, the wayang will be his secondary occupation. The performance definitely entertainment for humans not spirits. These rituals are performed for various purposes, propitiation of spirits, releasing a person from a vow, and initiating a pupil, but their form is basically the same and consists of a synthesis of Javanesse wayang ritual and local spirit medium ship. The importance of these rituals is that performed to ward off the threat of cholera by placating the local spirits. The dalang learn their art from a teacher, the few exceptions to this merely imitating the performances of others. The teacher is rarely the dalangs father and the art is not hereditary. (Amin.S 1972). Comparison of the repertoire, performance and ritual of a dalang with those of his teacher reveals, almost without exception, considerable differences. There are several reasons for this: It is rare that a dalang learns everything from one source and it is not unsual to have had more than one teacher, though this may not be admitted. A dalang may further learn pieces of repertoire from persons who are not even dalang and information are also gleaned by observing the performances of other dalang. It is clear, therefore, that every dalangs knowledge is to a greater or lesser extent a pot pourri gathered from several sources. (Amin.S 1972) Several reasons for becoming a dalang but the primary motive is nearly always that he experiences intense pleasure from observing the wayang and that he has the urge and desire to perform himself. Dance Theatre – Mak Yong Human characters but not puppet play performed the traditional theatres known as Mak Yong. Mak Yong is forms by three integral- dance, dialogue and music with the legend story from local place. While there are common denominators in dramatic, musical, and dance structure, there are, however, marked difference among them in dance and music styles. The Mak Yong has been noted as an ancient Malay form of theatre as witnessed in legends, myths and by its close ties to the traditional healing ceremony called the main puteri. (Ghouse Nasuruddin 1992) Besides that, Common feature are shared in these various traditional theatres. The performances are usually to anticipated and down mainly from stories and legend known to the community. Generally, plots are episode and long enough to allow audience members to drift in and out during the performance. Mak Yong is a traditional form of dance originated in Southern Thailand, it appears in Kelantan since last two hundred years, and is one of the popular traditional dances in Terengganu and spread to Kedah. In the early 20th century, Mak Yong was given royal patronage by the court of Kelantan which established a â€Å"theatrical village† known as the â€Å"Kampung Temenggung† in the town of Kota Bahru. (Ghouse Nasuruddin 1992) This form of theatre was supported and patronized by His Highness Temengung Ghaffar from the Kelantan palace at that time. But the patronage did not last long until the death of Sultan Mohamad IV at 1920, although Mak Yong was originally about rural regions as a folk tradition, through its years of royal patronage the music, dance, costumes and other theatrical aspects were refined because of the constant opportunities for practice and performance in Kampung Temengung. In between the changes; Mak Yong became popular as an entertainment in the public and lost its artistic quality which is normally connected with a court oriented performance. When time goes by, the court dance eventually turn to a normal performance to the public and created new audience, portraying the folk life. Mak Yong performs at many occasions, but emphasize specifically on padi harvest, that is a thanksgiving ceremony for bounteous crop. Wedding, kings birthday and national holiday were the occasions Mak Yong to be performed. According to Patricia A, Sooi Beng T, Mak Yong traditional performances have a connection with ritual and the world of spirits. Mak Yong served as healing rituals. Main Puteri is the healing person and the healing section involves soporific dance and spirit possession. In some traditional cities, the healing rituals are still pursuing but they are mainly frowned nowadays. It reflects the inner, the significant and mysterious of stories. High ritual performance sometimes occurs in Mak Yong. A good example: sembah guru (paying homage to ones teacher) ceremony and performance in which a student, who is ready to go on stage as a principal, performs certain rites within connection of a performance itself. The main puteri healing ceremony for the intention of healing a sick people will sometime found in the main structure element of Mak Yong. Shaman (bomoh) take the lead to communicate with the spirit world to discover the root of an illness and the main actress (the Pak Yong character), a lthough main puteri ceremonial elements become dominant in the performance, the music used is still that of the Mak Yong. Troupe of women performed the main role whilst men played the clown roles. This form of dance was established as a court form (C.1875) that became well known to villages. The women sing, dance and perform improvise dialogue especially in the clown and contemporary section. The action takes place in the round, with all nonnative cast members sitting casually around the outside of the circle. (Anonymous n.d) Performers are considered to be off-stage or members of the chorus when not in the central acting space. Performers work towards the creation and identification character types, stylized motion, poetic language and rhythmic language. Along with dialogue and notated passage, music, song and dance is also incorporated into traditional performance. Serious or tragic events are intermingling with comedy. The original story in the Mak Yong dramatic repertory is called the Dewa Muda, which is a Malay folk tale. The stories Dewa Muda come along with about twelve other tales consist the dramatic repertory. (Patricia A, Sooi Beng T 2004) Several of these stories are also performed in other local theater forms such as the wayang kulit, menorah and the bangsawan. The stories focus on folk heroes, heroines, their fantastic adventures, and are told using dialogue, singing and dance by the characters along with the accompaniment of vocal and instrumental music. Some of the especially important roles are the Pakyung and Pakyung Muda (the king and prince), the queen or Makyung and the princess or Puteri Makyung, the old and young clown-servants known respectively, as the Peran Tua and Peran Muda, and the astrologer or expert of some kind called Tok Wak. In the 20th century, and still today, all principal roles are taken by women who dress according to the role played. However, before the 1020s m en played the roles of the Pakyung and Pakyung Muda and not women. Performance practice The Makyung performance begins with an opening ceremony called the Buka Panggung (opening of the stage) with prayers, offerings of food and the consecration of the musical instruments and other items. (Patricia A, Sooi Beng T 2004). Immediately following the official opening is the performance of several pieces before the story itself actually begins. These pieces each have a special function and serve to introduce the characters or carry out some other special purpose. For example, the actors and actresses come onto the stage with the accompaniment of the piece called Pakyung Turun (The king descends), an instrumental piece. This piece is followed by a ritual song and dance called the Menghadap Rebab (paying homage to the rebab), which salutes the musical instrument called the rebab. The opening section of the performance continues with the pieces entitled Sedayung Mak yong and Sedayung Pak yong. These two pieces are performed to introduce the Mak Yong and Pak Yong characters. Another piece entitled Ela is performed by the Pak Yong character to introduce the character he will play in the story for the evening. All of these pieces (except the Pak Yong Turun) also involved specific dances, which are performed by the main singer along with the members of the chorus (the jong dondang). This group of sung and danced pieces comprises a fixed opening, which is performed each time a Mak Yong performance takes place. A given story takes several nights to complete and, before its continuation from night to night, the fixed opening of sung and d

Kurds - A People Without a State Essay -- Culture Kurds History Essays

Kurds - A People Without a State Introduction Of all the ethnic groups in the world, the Kurds are one of the largest that has no state to call their own. According to historian William Westermann, "The Kurds can present a better claim to race purity...than any people which now inhabits Europe." (Bonner, p. 63, 1992) Over the past hundred years, the desire for an independent Kurdish state has created conflicts mainly with the Turkish and Iraqi populations in the areas where most of the Kurds live. This conflict has important geographical implications as well. The history of the Kurdish nation, the causes for these conflicts, and an analysis of the situation will be discussed in this paper. History of the Kurds The Kurds are a Sunni Muslim people living primarily in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. The 25 million Kurds have a distinct culture that is not at all like their Turkish, Persian, and Arabic neighbors (Hitchens, p. 36, 1992). It is this cultural difference between the groups that automatically creates the potential for conflict. Of the 25 million Kurds, approximately 10 million live in Turkey, four million in Iraq, five million in Iran, and a million in Syria, with the rest scattered throughout the rest of the world (Bonner, p. 46, 1992). The Kurds also have had a long history of conflict with these other ethnic groups in the Middle East, which we will now look at. The history of Kurds in the area actually began during ancient times. However, the desire for a Kurdish homeland did not begin until the early 1900’s, around the time of World War I. In his Fourteen Points, President Woodrow Wilson promised the Kurds a sovereign state (Hitchens, p. 54, 1992). The formation of a Kurdish state was supposed to have been accomplished through the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 which said that the Kurds could have an independent state if they wanted one (Bonner, p. 46, 1992). With the formation of Turkey in 1923, Kemal Ataturk, the new Turkish President, threw out the treaty and denied the Kurds their own state. This was the beginning of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. At about this same time, the Kurds attempted to establish a semi-independent state, and actually succeeded in forming the Kingdom of Kurdistan, which lasted from 1922-1924; later, in 1946, some of the Kurds established the Mahabad Republic... ... seem very willing to give up their territory to the Kurds. The plan of the PUK has a small chance to work, assuming that guerrilla tactics would scare the Iraqi government. By simply holding out, the Kurds would gain nothing, because the Iraqis are not threatened by the Kurds per se. However, by attacking the Iraqis, the Kurds run the risk of a counterattack which they probably could not effectively deal with. Basically, that would make the situation for the Kurds even worse than before. Conclusion Without the support of a large powerful nation such as the U.S., the Kurds will probably never establish an independent Kurdish state. The Kurds do not have enough military power to fight off the Turks and Iraqis without help. The Iraqis and Turks would not be willing to give up their economically important territory to people which they perceive a "threat" to their way of life and will most likely continue to fight the Kurds. The Kurds have no choice but to continue fighting until either they or the Turks and Iraqis are defeated, as both groups are unwilling to allow them to remain in their countries. The future definitely looks bleak for the Kurds.

Significant Differences Between Accounting and Oil and Gas Operations and the Conventional Accounting for Manufacturing or Mechanize Operation.

SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ACCOUNTING AND OIL AND GAS OPERATIONS AND THE CONVENTIONAL ACCOUNTING FOR MANUFACTURING OR MECHANIZE OPERATION. By Demoore Suleman ———————– Conventional Manufacturing Account 1. Definition: Manufacturing account, the term I use to describe business organizations engaged in the manufacture of goods for sale. These company maintain a manufacturing account. 2. Cost Method: Expenses are the cost of unsold products and are reported as assets. These expenses include wages, electricity in offices outside of the factory (sales and marketing, general administrative offices) are reported immediately as expenses in the accounting period that they are used cost outside of the factory do not become part o the product cost. Under the accrual method of accounting, period cost such as selling, general and administrative expenses are reported in the income statement in the accounting period in which they are used up or explore. Variances from purchase are recorded at that time the raw materials are purchased and re – classified into raw materials inventory, Accounting for oil and gas operation 1. Definition : Oil and Gas Account: The term is used to describe the books of account of companies involved in the exploration an development of crude oil and natural gas. 2. Cost Method Accounting for oil and gas operations follow one of two methods of financial accounting. a. Full Cost Method: All property acquisition exploration and development cost, even dry hole cost are capitalized as oil and gas properties. These cost represent fixed asset, amortized on a country – by country basis using a unit of production method based on volume produced and emaining proved reserves. Acquisition and development activities are capitalized expenses irrespective of whether or not the activities resulted in the discovery of reserve. b. The successful effort (SE) method: allows a company to capitalize only those expenses associated with successful locating new oil and natural gas reserves. automotive, electrical, agricultural, medical and aromatic indu stries. Stocks are recorded as current assets and are classified into i. Raw materials and consumables ii. Work in Progress iii. Finished goods and goods awaiting sale v. Prepayment for stock in transit The Financial Accounting Standard Board issued it concept statement No 6 Element of financial statements which defines terms as expenses, loses, revenues, assets e. t. c 3. Accounting Policies Goodwill is not subject to amortization instead the companies must conduct periodic impairment testing. The Net unauthorized capitalized costs are also amortized on unit of production method whereby property acquisition cost are amortized over proved reserves and property development cost are amortized over proved developed reserves. The Net Unamortized capitalized cost of oil and gas properties less related deffered income taxes may not exceed a ceiling consisting primarily of a computed present value of projected future cash flows, after income taxes , from the proved reserves. Amortization is computed by lease or property) or field. Accounting standard disclose for the petroleum downstream activities engaged in a. Refining and petrochemical b. Marketing and Distribution c. Liquefied Natural Gas Accounting Policies are captioned rather than as notes in the financial statements. ork in process inventory, finished goods inventory, and cost of good sold. Profit margins set are Standardized cost and represented graphically as break even point analysis. 3. Accounting Policies a. Disclosure requirement for balance sheet:- Goodwill are reported in the balance sheet as deffered charges and are long term asset. Accounting policies prominently disclosed as note to individual items in the financial statement of convention al manufacturing accounting. Disclosure requirement refers to the minimum amount of information which should be presented on financial statement. The disclosure requirement for balance sheet and profit and lost account is regulated by the second schedule of the company And Allied Matters Act in Nigeria (CAMA) 1990 while for the others part of the financial statement, it is regulated by the statement of accounting standard issued by the Nigerian Accounting Standard Board. They act under Section 335 sub-section 1 provides: For unsuccessful or (dry hole) results, the associated operating cost are immediately changed against revenue for that period. Acquisition and Mineral Right Prospecting cost associated with pre licensing are incurred in the period prior to the acquisition of legal right to explore for oil and gas in a particular location, such cost include the acquisition of speculative seismic data and expenditures on the subsequent geological and geophysical analysis of the data. Other licensing faces are oil exploration license, oil mining lease license. Oil prospecting license (OPL). In the course of acquiring the right to explore, develop and produce oil or natural gas, expenses relating to either purchase or lease to the right to extract the oil and gas from a property not owned by the company. Acquisition costs also includes any lease bonus payment to the property owner along with legal expenses, and title search, broker and recording cost. Under both SE and FE accounting methods acquisition cost are capitalized â€Å"The financial statement of a company prepared under section 334 of this Decree shall comply with the requirement of schedule 2 to the Decree (so far as applicable) with respect to their form and content, and with the accounting standards laid down in the statement of accounting standards, issued from time to time by the Nigerian Accounting Standard Board.. Provided such accounting standards do not conflict with the provision of this Decree or Schedule 2 to this Decree†. 4. Operations: The manufacturing process result in the continuous flow of intermediate product which serve as industrial input for the production of wide varieity of end product in building, textile, packaging, automotive, electrical, agricultural, medical and aromatic industries. Stocks are recorded as current assets and are classified into i. Raw materials and consumables ii. Work in Progress iii. Finished goods and goods awaiting sale iv. Prepayment for stock in transit The Financial Accounting Standard Board issued it concept statement of Exploration Costs: Typical of exploration costs are changes relating to the collection and analysis of geo-physical and Seismic data involved in the initial examination of a targeted area and later used in the decision of whether to drill at that location. Other cost involved those associated with drilling a well, which are further considered as being intangible or tangible. Intangible cost in general are those incurred to ready the site prior to the installation of the drilling equipment whereas tangible drilling cost are those incurred to install and operate that equipment. Treatment: All intangible cost will be charged to the income statement as part of the periods operating expenses for a company following the successful method . All tangible drilling cost associated with the successful discovery of new reserves will be capitalized while those incurred in an unsuccessful effort are also added to the operating expenses for that period. Capitalized means being added to the balance sheet as a long term assets. Development Cost: Involved in the preparation of discovered reserves for production such as those incurred in the construction or Disclosure Requirement for Value Added Statement Value Added simply refers to the difference between input value and output value. S. 35 (4) of the CAMA 1990 requires that â€Å" the value added statement shall report the wealth created by the company during the year and its distribution among various interest groups such as the employees, the government, creditors, proprietors and the company†, while emphasizing on the importance of the statement as apart of the financial statement, SAS 2 pointed out that the statement will enable companies to ensure the public that they do not exist for the length of their owners only but rather for the society at large. Possible uses to which the statement could be put include: i. Predicting managerial efficiency ii. Indicating the company’s wage paying ability iii. Evaluating the relative rewards of â€Å"shareholders† and other claimants against the company. the construction or improvement of roads to access the well site, with additional drilling or well completion work, an with installing other needed infrastructure to extract (e. g. pumps), gather (pipelines and store tanks) the oil or natural gas reserves both ST and FC allow for the capitalization of all development costs Production cost: Ensured costs in extracting oil or natural gas from the reserves are considered production costs. Typical of these cost are wages for workers and electricity for operating well pumps. Production cost are considered part of periodic operating expenses and are charged directly to the income statement under both accounting methods. Full cost accounting provides more meaningful financial statement. The primary asset of an oil company are the underground oil and gas reserves but not the individual well drill (expenses) in producing the oil. Its been further argued that the amortization of full cost over time produces more meaning income statement through improved matching of cost is to be released revenue. No 6 Element of financial statements which defines terms as expenses, loses, revenues, assets e. t. c Disclosure Requirement for Profit and Loss Account The Profit and Lost Account is an account which report the revenue and expenses of an enterprise for a given accounting period. The objective of the profit and loss account as stated under S. 335 (2) of CAMA 1990 is to give a true and fair view of the profit and loss account of the company for the financial year. The minimum information are disclosed in the profit an loss account are disclosed in schedule 2 paragraph 13 of CAMA 1990. Disclosure Requirement For Fund/Cash Flow Statement Statement of Accounting Standard (SAS) 2 defined a funds flow statement as a statement which provides information on the derivation and utilization of funds during the period covered by the financial; a statement. A funds flow statement show the movement in net current assets of a company Companies are required by law under S. 335(3) of CAMA 1990 to prepare and publish such statements and to give a detailed information on the various sources of funds on its disposition during the accounting period covered. 4. Operation: in the oil and Gas companies are refining which is simply the breaking down of the hydrocarbon mixture of crude oil into useful petroleum products. This is done through distillation cracking, reforming and extraction process these operations can be subdivided into i. Crude oil acquisition, ii. Crude oil storage iii. Processing iv. Blending v. Finished products stages Oil and gas companies are affected by periodic changes for depreciation depletion and amortization (DD &A) of costs relating to expenditures for the acquisition and development of new oil and natural gas reserves. They include the depreciation of certain long – lived operating equipment, the depletion of costs relating to the acquisition of property or properly mineral rights, and other amortization of tangible non – drilling cost incurred with developing the reserves. The periodic depreciation, depletion and amortization expense charged to the income statement is determined by the unit of production method in which the percent of total production for the Note to the account: does not become necessary if the balance sheet profit and lost account provides sufficient disclose in the accounts to give a true and fair view of the company’s state of affairs and the profit and loss position. This is however contained in S. 335 (7) of the CAMA 1990 which states as follows: â€Å"if the balance sheet or profit and loss account drawn up in accordance with these requirements would not provide sufficient information to comply with subsection (2) of this section, any necessary additional information shall be provided in that balance sheet or profit and loss account or in a note to the accounts†. Total production for the period to total proven reserves are the beginning of the period is applied to the gross total of cost capitalized on the Balance Sheet. Depletion is the means of expending the cost incurred in acquiring and developing oil and gas using unit of production method. Depletion rate per barrel is completed as:- Capitalized Cost / output Depletion expense is computed as:- Depletion Rate x No of Out-put Produced |Accounting treatment of cost | | SE FC | |Acquisition | Capitalized |Capitalized | |Geolog & Geophy |Expense |Capitalized | |Explorating dry hole |Expense |Capitalized | |Development Dry hole |Capitalized |Capitalized | |Production cost |Expense |Expense | Expense is associated with income statement, capitalization is associated with Balance sheet extract. References J. Vitalome , Accounting for Differences in Oil and Gas Accounting,http://www. investopedia. com S. Abubakar (2007), Lecture Note Oil and Gas Accounting Department of Accounting Faculty of Administration Ahmadu Bello University Zaria. Federal Government of Nigeria (1990), Company and Allied Matters Act, Lagos Government Printers NASB(1985), Information to be Disclosed in Financial Statement, Statement of Accounting Standard 2

Dimensional Analysis in Physics Problems

Dimensional Analysis in Physics Problems Dimensional analysis is a method of using the known units in a problem to help deduce the process of arriving at a solution. These tips will help you apply dimensional analysis to a problem. How Dimensional Analysis Can Help In science, units such as meter, second, and degree Celsius represent quantified physical properties of space, time, and/or matter. The International System of Measurement (SI) units that we use in science consist of seven base units, from which all other units are derived. This means that a good knowledge of the units youre using for a problem can help you figure out how to approach a science problem, especially early on when the equations are simple and the biggest hurdle is memorization. If you look at the units provided within the problem, you can figure out some ways that those units relate to each other and, in turn, this might give you a hint as to what you need to do to solve the problem. This process is known as dimensional analysis. A Basic Example Consider a basic problem that a student might get right after starting physics. Youre given a distance and a time and you have to find the average velocity, but youre completely blanking on the equation you need to do it. Dont panic. If you know your units, you can figure out what the problem should generally look like. Velocity is measured in SI units of m/s. This means that there is a length divided by a time. You have a length and you have a time, so youre good to go. A Not That was an incredibly simple example of a concept that students are introduced to very early in science, well before they actually begin a course in physics. Consider a bit later, however, when youve been introduced to all kinds of complex issues, such as Newtons Laws of Motion and Gravitation. Youre still relatively new to physics, and the equations are still giving you some trouble. You get a problem where you have to calculate the gravitational potential energy of an object. You can remember the equations for force, but the equation for potential energy is slipping away. You know its kind of like force, but slightly different. What are you going to do? Again, a knowledge of units can help. You remember that the equation for gravitational force on an object in Earths gravity and the following terms and units: Fg G * m * mE / r2 Fg is the force of gravity - newtons (N) or kg * m / s2G is the gravitational constant and your teacher kindly provided you with the value of G, which is measured in N * m2 / kg2m mE are mass of the object and Earth, respectively - kgr is the distance between the center of gravity of the objects - m  We want to know U, the potential energy, and we know that energy is measured in Joules (J) or newtons * meter  We also remember that the potential energy equation looks a lot like the force equation, using the same variables in a slightly different way In this case, we actually know a lot more than we need to figure it out. We want the energy, U, which is in J or N * m. The entire force equation is in units of newtons, so to get it in terms of N * m you will need to multiply the entire equation a length measurement. Well, only one length measurement is involved - r - so thats easy. And multiplying the equation by r would just negate an r from the denominator, so the formula we end up with would be: Fg G * m * mE / r We know the units we get will be in terms of N*m, or Joules. And, fortunately, we did study, so it jogs our memory and we bang ourselves on the head and say, Duh, because we should have remembered that. But we didnt. It happens. Fortunately, because we had a good grasp on the units we were able to figure out the relationship between them to get to the formula that we needed. A Tool, Not a Solution As part of your pre-test studying, you should include a bit of time to make sure youre familiar with the units relevant to the section youre working on, especially those that were introduced in that section. It is one other tool to help provide physical intuition about how the concepts youre studying are related. This added level of intuition can be helpful, but it shouldnt be a replacement for studying the rest of the material. Obviously, learning the difference between gravitational force and gravitational energy equations is far better than having to re-derive it haphazardly in the middle of a test. The gravity example was chosen because the force and potential energy equations are so closely related, but that isnt always the case and just multiplying numbers to get the right units, without understanding the underlying equations and relationships, will lead to more errors than solutions.