Research Methods Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 4

Research Methods - Essay Example According to Bryman (2008, p. 25), a sample has advantages than a complete count in that; Different sampling techniques exist and they are divided into two categories namely formal and informal (non probability sampling). The formal sampling techniques operate on a known probability of choosing and they include; simple random sampling, stratified sampling, cluster sampling, systematic sampling and multistage sampling. Simple random sampling is a technique where all the elements are said to have the same chance of being selected. The probability of selecting any elements in the population is equal (Green and Salkind 2008, p. 57). This technique is applied in cases where all the elements in that certain population have same traits (characteristics). Such populations are said to be homogenous. Another formal sampling technique is stratified sampling and is applied in cases where the population is made up of elements of different traits. In this technique, the population is sub-divided into non-overlapping sub-groups called strata (each is a stratum) each made up of elements with the same traits. Once this has been done, a simple random sample is selected from each stratum and then combined for final analysis. This technique is advantageous in that it eliminates biasness which is present if simple random sampling is used and also leads to higher precision. Cluster sampling on the other hand is a probability sampling technique in which the population is divided into clusters and then the researcher selects randomly the clusters to be included in the final analysis. It is mostly used in cases where getting the entire population for the research study is impossible or where the study population is concentrated in regions e.g. schools, churches, counties etc. The only disadvan tage of this technique is less precision than even simple random sampling and stratified sampling. Systematic sampling is the selecting of sample

Impact of the Affordable Care Act Essay Example for Free

Impact of the Affordable Care Act Essay The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law by President Barack Obama early in 2010. The ACA was introduced into law to help provide access to affordable and quality health insurance to more Americans than ever before. The goal was to reduce health care cost for individuals and government. It has allowed more adults to be eligible for Medicaid by increasing income eligibility to 138 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). (Milstead, 2013) However, by ruling of the Supreme Court in June of 2012, states had the option to implement the expansion of Medicaid eligibility to cover more low-income adults. As of January 2014, North Carolina (NC) was one of the states that chose not to implement the expansion of Medicaid making the eligibility for Medicaid for low-income adults very limited. How does this affect the population, economy, cost, and quality of health care? North Carolina’s Right to Refuse According to Knickman and Kovner (2011, p. 110), â€Å"the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives states the primary responsibility for public health. Medicaid is administered and overseen by each state but governed by various federal guidelines with the federal government contributing 50%-78% of its costs. (2011) After long debate and review of advantages and disadvantages to implementing the new laws, the North Carolina’s government elected not to adopt the new legislation. Caroll (2013) indicated the decision was based on NC’s current Medicaid system, indicating that is was broken and needing to be revised. There was concern the ACA would cause an increase in taxpayer’s contribution due to the long term costs. As of September 2014, there are 21 states that are following North Carolina’s decision not to adopt the new health care reform. This would leave millions of Americans that would be eligible for Medicaid under the ACA without access to health care.  (StateReforum, 2014) Impact on the Population One of the initiatives of the ACA was to provide more than 32 million uninsured Americans with insurance coverage. This was to be done by increasing the FPL to 138 percent and lifting or altering certain limitations for eligibility to Medicaid. This meant that all Americans whose income was at or below the FPL would be eligible for Medicaid. For example, an unemployed, single, 26-year-old male without any other income would be eligible for Medicaid. Medicaid would no longer be limited to specific categories such as the disabled, children and their parents, or pregnant women whose income was below the FPL. North Carolina’s current Medicaid program â€Å"eligibility for non-disabled adults is limited to parents with incomes below 43% of poverty, or about $10,000 a year for a family of four, and adults without dependent children remain ineligible regardless of their income† (How Will the Uninsured, 2014). Currently, there are over 319,000 uninsured adults in NC that are not eligible for Medicaid, by the current NC guidelines, which would be eligible under the Affordable Care Act. This can lead to increased health care costs and weighs heavily on the economy. Who is to take up the slack? Economic Effects of Doing Nothing Dorgan (2009), Chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, indicates that the current health care system in NC has â€Å"led to higher health care costs, reduced access to care, and inconsistent quality of care†. The Gross Domestic Product in 2013 for North Carolina, based on millions of dollars spent, was $471,365 million, an increase of over $50,000 million since 2010. (Department of Labor and Workforce, 2013) In 2013, North Carolina’s State Auditor Beth Wood indicated that the state’s Medicaid program had gone over budget for the past three years, costing taxpayers about $1.2 billion. (Hoban, 2013) This leaves businesses and the working population to cover health care costs by paying higher taxes. With unemployment soaring over the last decade, and North Carolina having one of the highest unemployment rates in the United States (Hoban, 2013), less is paid into taxes. This leads to less to cover health care costs. The Affordable Care Act was implemented to decrease the costs of health care for all Americans. According to the White House website (2014) â€Å"the Congressional Budget Office found that health  insurance reform will reduce the deficit by $210 billion in this decade and by more than $1 trillion over the following 10 years. A family of four would save as much as $2,300 on their premiums in 2014 compared to what they would have paid without reform†. Will the decreased costs affect the quality of care being provided? Quality of Care The implementation of the ACA will require a higher standard for quality of care. The ACA promotes the use of accountable care organizations (ACO), which is a type of managed care that includes at least primary physicians, specialists, and hospitals that would be held accountable for the quality of care provided. (Kovener and Knickman, 2011, p. 196) The ACA works to move away from a fee-for-service approach to an accountable care organization (ACO) model that would incorporate a coordinated approach to provide high quality of care. This type of system rewards physicians and health care facilities through how they are paid for the quality of care they provide. The ACA reforms the way health care is delivered to the population by â€Å"creating high-performing organizations of physicians and hospitals that use systems of care and information technology to prevent illness, improve access to care, improve safety, and coordinate services† (What is an Accountable Care, 2011) making them more accountable for the care they provide. Incentives are provided to physicians and healthcare organizations that have shown they can provide quality care and improve patient satisfaction. Ethical Implications How can the government provide quality health care to so many without sacrificing the rights of a few? The ACA was enacted to help provide health care to more adults between the ages of 19-64 years of age that otherwise would not have access to or afford health care. According to Sorrell (2012), Americans want a health care system that will provide quality care, have freedom of choice, be affordable, and allow the costs to be shared among all. There is worry the ACO will lead to cost-shifting. Medicare and Medicaid pay much less for reimbursement for health care treatment. To re-coop their costs, hospitals and health care providers participate in the unethical practice of shifting these losses to patients with insurance by charging more for the same services. Insurance companies then shift these  costs to members by increasing their premiums and out-of-pocket costs. With such an increase in the number of people eligible for Medicaid, providers will be receiving much less for the services they provide. Another concern is for the Americans that do not qualify for Medicaid. Income levels can qualify some for decrease in premiums for health insurance from private companies. However, there will be those that do not qualify in either category and do not have access to health insurance through their employer and cannot afford the high premiums of private insurance. The new health reform requires those that do not have some type of health insurance to have to pay penalties for not having insurance. Conclusion The Affordable Care Act was developed to provide health care to an additional 32 million Americans with the goal of reducing health care costs. Even though there are millions that will now have access to health care, there will be millions that do not qualify for the programs and will remain uninsured. There is much concern and debate the ACA with hurt the economy, increase health care costs, and add to the United States’ deficit. North Carolina, along with 21 other states, have chosen not to adopt the new law and either continue with current guidelines or choose to restructure their current health care policies. Concerns also arise about causing a decrease in quality of health care provided. The development of ACO’s through the ACA implies that quality of health care will be improved. However, there is question that ACO’s will lead to cost-shifting to re-coop lost costs from the influx of American’s now eligible for Medicaid and Medicare. References Caroll, B. (2013). North Carolina Thumbs its Nose at Obamacare. Retrieved from http://watchdogwire.com/northcarolina/2013/02/12/north-carolina-thumbs-its-nose-at-obamacare/ Dorgan, B. (2009). Health Care Reform: The Cost of Doing Nothing in North Carolina. Democratic Policy Committee. Retrieved from http://www.dpc.senate.gov/docs/states-fs-111-1-87/nc.pdf Hoban, R. (April, 2013). Cost of Care: How ‘Broken’ is NC Medicaid?. North Carolina Health News. Retrieved from http://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2013/04/15/how-broken-is-nc-medicaid/

Dave Matthews Band †The Sons of Crash :: Music

Dave Matthews Band – The Sons of Crash    All I want is for a voice to come out of the wilderness and the stereo to crackle in flames like the burning bush. I don’t want to have to ask, "Are you talking to me?" I want to know. -Ariel Swartley "The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle" Music is a funny thing. I’ve listened to music all my life, thousands of songs, hundreds of artists. But only a few stick out; like my first real album (Tiffany’s self titled release. What ever happened to her?), or my first alternative album (the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik: I bought it on tape when I was 14 and listened to it so much that it wore out). Only one has become a part of who I am, the Dave Matthews Band’s Crash. Somewhere between its "So Much To Say" and "Proudest Monkey" my indifferent hearing turned into awareness, and I stopped listening with just my ears and started listening with my heart. When I went to my first class at Mary Washington College, my English professor- an interesting man, but temporarily an agent of authority- posed a question to us, one that at the time had as much meaning as "What did you do this summer?" He asked us to pick a Desert Island Disc. It really wasn’t a hard decision; I was listening to the Dave Matthews Band’s Crash more than the rest of my CDs and I was pretty sure I could write the four papers on it required by the class. I really didn’t understand then the decision I had made. But out of respect and insecurity, I headed off to my desert island with Crash (cf. Mark 18). Most rock records aren’t hard to understand. They draw on commonplaces of community and adolescence: easy listening, good dancing, simple emotions, and sharp images†¦ But [Beggar’s Banquet’s] cleverness makes the difference.    -Simon Firth, "Beggars Banquet" Simon Firth "changed [his] usual habits" in 1968, choosing The Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet over "The Beatles’ more comfortable music," and was rewarded with "the most interesting rock record [he had] ever heard" (30). My musical snobbery ended in my junior year of high school, when my typical (and boring) choice of anything ‘alternative’: Metallica, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, was replaced with Garth Brooks, Blackstreet or my mom’s favorite, the Dave Matthews Band. Dave Matthews Band – The Sons of Crash :: Music Dave Matthews Band – The Sons of Crash    All I want is for a voice to come out of the wilderness and the stereo to crackle in flames like the burning bush. I don’t want to have to ask, "Are you talking to me?" I want to know. -Ariel Swartley "The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle" Music is a funny thing. I’ve listened to music all my life, thousands of songs, hundreds of artists. But only a few stick out; like my first real album (Tiffany’s self titled release. What ever happened to her?), or my first alternative album (the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik: I bought it on tape when I was 14 and listened to it so much that it wore out). Only one has become a part of who I am, the Dave Matthews Band’s Crash. Somewhere between its "So Much To Say" and "Proudest Monkey" my indifferent hearing turned into awareness, and I stopped listening with just my ears and started listening with my heart. When I went to my first class at Mary Washington College, my English professor- an interesting man, but temporarily an agent of authority- posed a question to us, one that at the time had as much meaning as "What did you do this summer?" He asked us to pick a Desert Island Disc. It really wasn’t a hard decision; I was listening to the Dave Matthews Band’s Crash more than the rest of my CDs and I was pretty sure I could write the four papers on it required by the class. I really didn’t understand then the decision I had made. But out of respect and insecurity, I headed off to my desert island with Crash (cf. Mark 18). Most rock records aren’t hard to understand. They draw on commonplaces of community and adolescence: easy listening, good dancing, simple emotions, and sharp images†¦ But [Beggar’s Banquet’s] cleverness makes the difference.    -Simon Firth, "Beggars Banquet" Simon Firth "changed [his] usual habits" in 1968, choosing The Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet over "The Beatles’ more comfortable music," and was rewarded with "the most interesting rock record [he had] ever heard" (30). My musical snobbery ended in my junior year of high school, when my typical (and boring) choice of anything ‘alternative’: Metallica, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, was replaced with Garth Brooks, Blackstreet or my mom’s favorite, the Dave Matthews Band.

Land Rights Essay

The land rights debate in the 1970’s was a tough and hard-fought journey for the Aboriginal people. In the 1967 Referendum, Australians showed their support for the Aboriginals, by voting to change the Constitution to include the indigenous in the Census and giving overriding authority to the Commonwealth government regarding Aboriginal affairs. Ralph Hunt, of the National Coalition Party and Federal Minister in 1971 stated ‘To just set aside land because Aboriginal groups and tribes believe they have a special right to it tends to only perpetuate the tribal system’, explaining that Indigenous people did not have the power nor authority to regain land that they believed belonged to them. However, by this stage, Aboriginal people were ‘less inclined to have white politicians deciding upon their best interests’. The quotation particularly reflected the ‘Assimilation’ policy in reference to the Indigenous people. In 1970, the Aborigines Adva ncement League had sent a petition to the United Nations, requesting that the union use its powers to uphold Aboriginal rights to the land. This strategy also failed. On Australia Day 1972, Prime Minister McMahon also supported Hunt’s views in publicly stating that Aboriginals did not have a right to any land or compensation, while also declaring that mining was permitted on Aboriginal reserves. On that same day, an Aboriginal ‘Tent Embassy’ was established on the front lawn of the Parliament house, protesting to secure land rights. The embassy became the focal point for protests against denial of rights for Aboriginal people. Regaining control of the traditional land was crucial to the Aboriginal people, as all means of their identity, spirituality, and the Dreaming shared an inextricable link with the land. The government was surprised by the amount of public support for the Aboriginal cause. A significant point in the lands right debate eventuated following the Labour Party’s Gough Whitlam’s reign as Prime Minister. Whitlam supported the land rights of Aboriginals and believed people should ‘contemplate what a British government would do’. Within Whitlam’s years as Prime Minister, he produced ‘one successful land claim’: by legally ‘handing back’ the deeds to Vincent Lingiari of the traditional Gurindji lands at Wattie Creek, NT in 1975. This however only provided the people with ‘leasehold of their tribal land’. Most of the actions regarding Aboriginal Land Rights in the 1970’s were symbolic, however no real ownership was  achieved. Question 2: The introduction of the ‘Mabo Judgement’ and the ‘Wik Decision’ were pivotal in the development of the Land Rights movement. The Mabo Judgement, named after Eddie Mabo, recognised the native title of the Merriam people to their original land, the Murray Islands. Up until the Mabo Judgement in particular, the government had decided Australia was not occupied prior to European settlement for legal reasons, or what has become known as Terra Nullius, meaning land belonging to no one. The High Court’s Mabo decision of 1992 acknowledging Native Title was based on the recognition of the spiritual links between the people and the land, and may continue to exist provided Indigenous groups continue to observe their traditional laws and customs. The Mabo decision also made clear that native title had been extinguished over freehold land. This meant that there was no risk of suburban homes affected from land claims, as most private land in urban Australia is freehold. The Mabo judgement was the initial step in recognising the Aboriginal’s link to their traditional lands, and became the first positive push for the Land Rights movement. The ‘Wik Decision’ of 1996, developed after the Wik people had sought Native Title over traditional lands which were under pastoral lands leases in north Queensland. The Wik decision meant that Aboriginals and native title may coexist with pastoral leases. However, if conflict arose, pastoral leases would prevail over native title. As approximately 42% of Australia was covered by pastoral leases, the decision gave many Aboriginal citizens the right of access to traditional lands, provided they did not interfere with the landowners. The Wik decision was a significant phase in the Land Rights movement, which, for the first time, provided Aboriginals with a legal positio n to claim their traditional land. In 1997, the Liberal Howard government reacted to white Australian protest, referred to as ‘white paranoia’, by introducing the 10 Point Plan, which would greatly restrict the rights of Aboriginals. This Plan made it much harder for Aboriginals to register a claim for native title, due to the tougher registration test. The 10 Point Plan developed into the inauguration of The Native Title Amendment Act of 1998. In reference to Frank Brennan, the act ‘allowed at least the rights to hunt, fish, camp and have ceremony’, which reflects the view that  Aboriginal rights had been minimalised. The amendment act, initiated by the Howard Government expelled the right of Indigenous people to negotiate on pastoral leases, giving leaseholders the ability to carry out a range of activities, under the category of ‘primary production’, on the land without consultation with the Aboriginals. After all the progress of both the Mabo and Wik judgements, this was a significant setback in the development and growth of the Aboriginal Land Rights movement.

Educator In Community Essay

Initial assessment should focus on learning styles and knowledge level of students. This can be accomplished by asking the expectation of students, activities that they want to participate in and through an assessment of existing skills and competencies. The nurse educator must then mediate the course objectives with the result of these tests: assessment of the class must be bridges with the target outcomes for students (Priest, 2004). Instructional strategies should include literature, practical demonstrations and activities as well investigative or research activities. Reading materials should be supported by activities that will allow the students to experience what they have read. Further reinforcement should be done through participation in discussions and research activities. Processing by students of the strategies and assessment by the teachers performance can then be used to determine shat activities or strategies is most effective for the class (Gay et al, 2006). Testing of students should assess their understanding of the significance of each element in the educational program. Evaluation of which teaching strategy, literature, practical or research based activities, should be done as a means of initial assessment and to gauge what strategy will be used in the program. Similar settings for health education should be assess individually, either anonymously or through personal or written by students, as well as a group to promote collaboration among participants and the nurse education. Nurse educators in community and staff education settings have to be sensitive regarding their audience and at the same time must not discriminative regarding the level of learning requires of their students (Blair, 2004; Priest, 2004). This entails effective assessment tools to gauge topic knowledge and the learning style of students (Gay et al, 2006). Nurse educators must expect that strategies must respond to the characteristics of their audience rather than the reverse and that. This will entail constantly redeveloping teaching methods to allow communities to work collaboratively with nurse educators in promoting long-term and sustainable health programs.

Literary Analysis of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man essays

Literary Analysis of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man essays A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is an extraordinary story about Stephen Dedalus and how he is effected by the Catholic religion. Stephen grows up with his nationality and faith playing a gigantic role in his life. His community has many religious expectations that he learns to live by. Eventually, Stephen decides that that is not what he wants out of life. He eventually gives all of it up to pursue his dream of being a writer. While Stephen is young, his Irish nationality and Catholic faith heavily influence him. At Clongowes Wood College, he attended a strict Catholic boarding school. In the beginning Stephen is lonely and homesick while attending the school, but as time goes by, he finds friendship among the other boys. While at school, he is a devout Christian. He had to undress and then kneel and say his own prayers and be in bed before the gas was lowered so that he might not go to hell when he died (Joyce 30). He would pray like this because the Catholic faith made him feel like a sinner and Stephen did not want to go to hell. Stephen planned to end up in heaven when he died. Stephens first sexual experience takes place with a Dublin prostitute. He had only wanted to be held by her. His lips would not kiss her. With a sudden movement she bowed his head and joined her lips to his and he read the meaning of her movements in her frank uplifted eyes (Joyce 109). He then lost all strength and surrendered to her kiss. This began to make him feel guilty and shameful. He then tries to reconcile his physical desires with the stern Catholic morality of his surroundings. During a period of time, he completely ignores his religious upbringing, throwing himself with debauched abandon into a variety of sins. Some of these sins include masturbation, gluttony, and more visits to prostitutes. Eventually he goes on a three-day religious retreat, Stephen hears a trio of fiery sermons about sin, ju...

Creationism Vs. Evolution Essays - Creationism, Pseudoscience

Creationism Vs. Evolution Essays - Creationism, Pseudoscience Creationism vs. Evolution In my short life on this planet I have come to question things that many take upon blind faith. We all know that we must some day die; yet we continuously deny the forces at work inside ourselves, which want to search out the answers of what may or may not come after. It is far easier for humanity to accept that they will go to a safe haven and be rewarded for their lives with pleasures and fantasies of an unfathomable scale than to question the existence of a supposed omnipotent being. Yet, there are a few of us humans who tend to question the why's and wherefore's that society puts forth to us. We question the existence of God, or the creation of mankind rather than blindly accepting faith-filled beliefs we may received from our parents as children. Perhaps it is because we live in a nation filled with many peoples of different beliefs whose Gods are all so varied and different that it is difficult to fathom that they are all the same divine being. It is also plausible that we just have a desire to quench the thirst for knowledge that lies deep within ourselves. As for myself, I cannot believe in a being which created a universe and a multitude of worlds in a rather short period of time then deigns to lower itself into becoming a puppet-master and "pulling the strings" of the Earth and all of the people therein. Since this paper touches upon many scientific terms, I feel that in order for the reader to correctly grasp the content I must first define three words: Theory, Law, and Hypothesis. The definitions will allow for a greater underezding of this essay and give us an even ground upon which to begin. - Theory; noun 1. a. Systematically organized knowledge applicable in a relatively wide variety of circumezces, especially a system of assumptions, accepted principles, and rules of procedure devised to analyze, predict, or otherwise explain the nature or behavior of a specified set of phenomena. b. Such knowledge or such a system. 2. An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture. Law; noun 1. a. A formulation describing a relationship observed to be invariable between or among phenomena for all cases in which the specified conditions are met: the law of gravity. b. A generalization based on consistent experience or results: the law of supply and demand; the law of averages. Hypothesis; noun 1. A tentative explanation that accounts for a set of facts and can be tested by further investigation; a theory. 2. Something taken to be true for the purpose of argument or investigation; an assumption. - It is important that you thoroughly read the above definitions or you will be at a disadvantage if you do not. You will note that there are several different definitions to each word. I felt it was important to include the added definitive statement to theory because it shows the difference between a scientific theory and an "everyday" theory based upon conjecture. The additional definitions to law and hypothesis are both added for a further underezding of these words. The definition of creationism is somewhat more complex. One must start by saying that the belief in the creation of the universe given at the beginning of the Bible is literally true. Creationism is a belief based solely upon faith (which is a belief in and of itself). There are no scientific facts as a basis for this belief, solely conjectural theories and speculations. It is ingrained into our minds, as children that a belief of a force, or supernatural entity, which is all powerful and all knowing, is watching over us and taking care of our needs. Yet, to me, saying this very sort of thing is heretical in its very essence. To be so crude as to think that some being which created the universe itself and all things in it would take the time to care for each and every individual is incomprehensible. In practically all ancient cultures, the biblical included, the universe was thought of as an original chaos into which order had been introduced by a creative hand: This was the essence of creation.1 In this statement alone we

Descriptive vs. Inferential Statistics

Descriptive vs. Inferential Statistics The field of statistics is divided into two major divisions: descriptive and inferential. Each of these segments is important, offering different techniques that accomplish different objectives. Descriptive statistics describe what is going on in a  population  or  data set. Inferential statistics, by contrast, allow scientists to take findings from a sample group and generalize them to a larger population. The two types of statistics have some important differences. Descriptive Statistics Descriptive statistics is the type of statistics that probably springs to most people’s minds when they hear the word â€Å"statistics.† In this branch of statistics, the goal is to describe. Numerical measures are used to tell about features of a set of data. There are a number of items that belong in this portion of statistics, such as: The average, or measure of the center of a data set, consisting of the mean, median, mode, or midrangeThe spread of a data set, which can be measured with the range or standard deviationOverall descriptions of data such as the five number summaryMeasurements such as skewness and kurtosisThe exploration of relationships and correlation between paired dataThe presentation of statistical results in graphical form These measures are important and useful because they allow scientists to see patterns among data, and thus to make sense of that data. Descriptive statistics can only be used to describe the population or data set under study: The results cannot be generalized to any other group or population. Types of Descriptive Statistics There are two kinds of descriptive statistics that social scientists use: Measures of central tendency  capture general trends within the data and are calculated and expressed as the mean,  median, and  mode. A mean tells scientists the mathematical average of all of a data set, such as the average age at first marriage; the median represents the middle of the data distribution, like the age that sits in the middle of the range of ages at which people first marry; and, the mode might be the most common age at which people first marry. Measures of spread  describe how the data are distributed and relate to each other, including: The range, the entire range of values present in a data setThe  frequency distribution, which defines how many times a particular value occurs within a data setQuartiles, subgroups formed within a data set when all values are divided into four equal parts across the rangeMean absolute deviation, the average of how much each value deviates from the meanVariance, which illustrates how much of a spread exists in the dataStandard deviation, which illustrates the spread of data relative to the mean Measures of spread are often visually represented in tables, pie and bar charts, and histograms to aid in the understanding of the trends within the data. Inferential Statistics Inferential statistics are produced through complex mathematical calculations that allow scientists to infer trends about a larger population based on a study of a sample taken from it. Scientists use inferential statistics to examine the relationships between variables within a sample and then make generalizations or predictions about how those variables will relate  to  a larger population. It is usually impossible to examine each member of the population individually. So scientists choose a representative subset of the population, called a  statistical sample, and from this analysis, they are able to say something about the population from which the sample came. There are two major divisions of inferential statistics: A confidence interval gives a range of values for an unknown parameter of the population by measuring a statistical sample. This is expressed in terms of an interval and the degree of confidence that the parameter is within the interval.Tests of significance or hypothesis testing  where scientists make a claim about the population by analyzing a statistical sample. By design, there is some uncertainty in this process. This can be expressed in terms of a level of significance. Techniques that social scientists use to examine the relationships between variables, and thereby to create inferential statistics, include linear regression analyses,  logistic regression analyses,  ANOVA,  correlation analyses,  structural equation modeling, and survival analysis. When conducting research using inferential statistics, scientists conduct a test of significance to determine whether they can  generalize their results to a larger population. Common tests of significance include  the  chi-square  and  t-test. These tell scientists the probability that the results of their  analysis of the sample are representative of the population as a whole. Descriptive vs. Inferential Statistics Although descriptive statistics is helpful in learning things such as the spread and center of the data, nothing in descriptive statistics can be used to make any generalizations. In descriptive statistics, measurements such as the mean and standard deviation are stated as exact numbers. Even though inferential statistics uses some similar calculations - such as the mean and standard deviation - the focus is different for inferential statistics. Inferential statistics start with a sample and then generalizes to a population. This information about a population is not stated as a number. Instead, scientists express these parameters as a range of potential numbers, along with a degree of confidence.

American History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 3

American History - Essay Example This act of civil disobedience became the spark that ignited the masses during the 1950’s and 1960’s in protesting the racial inequalities. The government, today widely viewed as a body that finds solutions to such social problems, was the entity that created this problem in the first place. The Jim Crow laws that disenfranchised black voters ensured that only white opinions mattered in the political process. Segregation, during the Jim Crow era, was not limited to transportation mediums. In Alabama, hospitals, whether public or private, could not require a white nurse to care for blacks (â€Å"Jim Crow Laws†, 1998). The subject of segregation became a much discussed topic during World War II. The nation that hailed itself as the symbol of freedom sent its young men to fight and die in a war to make the world safe for democracy. An embarrassing aspect of this high idealistic struggle was that U.S. blacks were subjugated within the very armed forces that were supp osed to stand for freedom of all nations. The black soldiers, of course, very much resented this lower class distinction as they bled the same color red as the white soldiers. The heroic actions by many black soldiers during the war began a change of direction in the attitude of whites throughout the country regarding race relations. The U.S. Constitution provided the lawful assurance that non-violent strategies were defensible in court. This allowed for the protests which inevitably led to the awakening to the black plight of many unwary whites who then joined the cause leading to the eradication of racist Jim Crow type laws forever. People, both black and white, were now willing to violate absurd, archaic local segregationist laws because they believed they were abiding and defending a ‘higher law,’ the Constitution. The original objective of the Southern Christian Leadership

Divorce as One of the Main Social Problems of Every Country Research Paper

Divorce as One of the Main Social Problems of Every Country - Research Paper Example The divorce rate in Canada is %. Four in ten marriages are ending in divorce which is a rate much higher than the past decades (CBCNews). The main reason is the economic downturn and inflation in prices, which has led to stress among spouses. Both the spouses are expected to earn; otherwise, making both ends meet becomes difficult. Debt and poverty are also on its rise due to the economic recession. Men are working for longer hours. This makes them spend less time with families and partners. Education rate is increasing, as Employment and Social Development Canada (para.2) suggests: â€Å"In 2012, about 53.6% of Canadians aged 15 and over had trade certificates, college diplomas and university degrees. This was an increase of 20.9 percentage points since 1990.† Also, the average age at first marriage for men was 31.1 years in 2008, and for women, it was 29.1 years. The divorce rate is %. Kelsey states that infidelity is no more the primary reason for divorce in the UK, as grow ing apart or out of love is becoming the biggest reason why people separate. Other reasons include domestic abuse, incompatibility, getting bored, lack of communication, children, high expectations, mental health, low socio-economic status, and less money. The age of marriage is also lower. â€Å"The mean age at marriage in 2012 was 36.5 years for men and 34.0 years for women (Office for National Statistics). Education level is high, with 77% of adults aged 25-64 possessing the equivalent of a high-school degree (OECD). Divorce is on its rise in all the three countries listed above. It is recommended that couples seek marriage counselling before deciding for divorce.

Anything But Lazy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Anything But Lazy - Essay Example In order to examine the effects of these factors, the author undertook a study which examined how middle school students undertake the "reading task demands of his or her classroom" and how each teacher contributed to the students' reading task / challenge. Using a descriptive case study approach, the author conducted periodic visits, administered questionnaires and conducted comprehension assessments in order to gather primary data. Identifying themes and patterns from an analysis of this data, the author identified "the ways in which each student transacted in the classroom and how the teachers worked with / responded to students around issues of reading and comprehension". The study revealed that as far as students were concerned, their reading / comprehension was influenced by own ability, desire to learn, and more importantly, how the student wanted to be perceived [by his or her peers] as a reader.

Timothy Mc Veigh ( terrorist) Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words - 1

Timothy Mc Veigh ( terrorist) - Research Paper Example The involvement of an American left the whole nation in a shock as most of the terrorist attacks in United States were carried out by a foreign agency. Timothy McVeigh used to be in United States army but got against the state due to certain incidents that took place in the history of the US. This essay would revolve around the life of Timothy McVeigh and his aims in life with regard to success and failure that he could achieve in life (Michel & Herbeck 2001). Timothy McVeigh was born in Pendleton New York in the year of 1968. He had two siblings and was the only boy in his family. He grew up in a rural community near Buffalo, Niagara and Canada and had a very disturbed life from an early age. His father was a worker in the General Motors manufacturing plant and his mother used to be a homemaker. His life seemed in turmoil at a very early age when his parents divorced each other when he was ten years old (CNN News 2001). His childhood was the most disturbing of all as it saw different types of events happening all over his life. His parents were not always around him and he felt their need as was quoted by one of his best friend’s mother "I just felt for him," she said. "His mother wasnt around. The father worked nights. The kids were alone. But he never showed any troubled side to me. He never seemed to be affected by it. He was always smiling, always polite.† But his problem was not limited as it was also noticed by boys li ving in the neighborhood. According to them McVeigh had a different life than any of the boy living in the area as he did not seem to enjoy the slightest moments of life, such as the birthday parties. Tim had a business mind from a very early age and was innovative in his careers. Tim was that sort of a person who liked people all around him and so he built himself a haunted house in his basement where he used to call upon his friends. Timothy McVeigh held his own weekend casino

Living Waters for Thirsty Souls Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Living Waters for Thirsty Souls - Essay Example Living water for thirsty souls: unleashing the power of exegetical preaching is comprehensive with example sermons to demonstrate every stride of this method (McMickle 46). Interaction and Dialog with these Concerns from Individual Experience I have attended sermons more than a few times when I visit a chapel. I have listened to sermons that were sometimes distorted and proposed something impractical at some instances. As I read â€Å"Living Water for Thirsty Souls: Unleashing the Power of Exegetical Preaching† I found out that these preachers did not use a line of attack that could make whatever they were preaching as practical and realistic as possible. They tried too hard to make things fit into some contexts that made people wonder whether the examples that were provided really applied to what was in the scripture. After reading the book, I learnt that almost all the sermons that I had attended did not utilize even a quarter of what McMickle come up with in his approach (M cMickle 65). The sermons had no type of limitations. This made the preachers to go out of context and confuse the individuals attending the sermon, me included. The preachers sometimes totally lost the audience's attention to the sermon by going out of topic and confusing it even further by not going back to what they had been initially preaching. This hindered me personally from getting any type of lesson from the sermon, which, I felt, was quite unfair to me, as well as to the congregation. I believe that â€Å"Living Water for Thirsty Souls: Unleashing the Power of Exegetical Preaching† is valuable when it uses the strategy of putting limits to the sermon, so that they can fit well with whatever the scriptures say. A lesson can be learnt from the sermon effectively, and at the same time without struggles to learn something from the sermons offered by priests (McMickle 76). In most of the sermons that I attended, sometimes I would find myself lost among the literature that was being presented for a particular sermon. This is because the preacher would read from the literature that was not related to the sermon at all. This is not good for any sermon because I felt that literature presented toward the congregation ought to be relevant and related to the sermon as a whole. I felt at most of the sermons I attended that I had not learnt anything because of the literature ignorance and the lack of its proper presentation. The literature should be totally in line with the sermon being presented to the congregation. For the better comprehension and easier understanding of the literature it must be explained in depth (McMickle 87). During sermons, a number of preachers utilize a number of expressions and words that have different meanings; sometimes I felt that sermons were misinterpreted. I attended sermons and found it hard sometimes to follow it because of the language that was utilized in the sermons, or the manner the preacher interpreted the scriptures to us. The interpretations would not fit the context of the literature of the scriptures. This made me spend time on trying to figure out why the preacher had come to such an interpretation instead of concentrating on the message that was being passed on by the preacher. I believe that preachers ought to utilize good interpretations and even

Evolution intellegence design Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Evolution intellegence design - Essay Example Fundamentally, the concept of intelligent design has to do with the premise that certain aspects of the world and the biological creations around us are only explained with the assumption that some kind of intelligence was behind their creation. Accordingly, the process of natural selection can only explain a part of the creation equation and not the whole. The supporters of intelligent design also say that it is a scientific theory and should be accepted on an equal level if not given more importance as compared to other scientifically accepted theories about the creation of the universe and the beginning of life on the planet (Natural History Magazine, 2002). Intelligent design proponents look for proof of some signs of intelligence, i.e. the physical or chemical properties of an object which can only be created by a force which designs them. The commonly cited signs of intelligence are the incredible complexity of various biological and geological mechanisms which have resulted in the world we live in today. These ideas are completely opposed to the mainstream scientific community which seeks to prove ideas with facts, hypotheses and experimental evaluations (Natural History Magazine, 2002). The scientific community expects to see incontestable data to explain the natural world through intelligent design and give reasons for biological processes such as gene mutations and natural selection. Currently, the vast majority of scientific minds consider intelligent design as a pseudoscience. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has been reported as saying that intelligent design and other non-scientific claims of supernatural or guided intervention in the origins of life can not be called science because they cannot be tested by experimental observations. Additionally, intelligent design does not give any predictions nor does it propose any new hypotheses (Wikipedia, 2006). It is clear to me that intelligent design works with an appeal to religious

Living Waters for Thirsty Souls Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Living Waters for Thirsty Souls - Essay Example Living water for thirsty souls: unleashing the power of exegetical preaching is comprehensive with example sermons to demonstrate every stride of this method (McMickle 46). Interaction and Dialog with these Concerns from Individual Experience I have attended sermons more than a few times when I visit a chapel. I have listened to sermons that were sometimes distorted and proposed something impractical at some instances. As I read â€Å"Living Water for Thirsty Souls: Unleashing the Power of Exegetical Preaching† I found out that these preachers did not use a line of attack that could make whatever they were preaching as practical and realistic as possible. They tried too hard to make things fit into some contexts that made people wonder whether the examples that were provided really applied to what was in the scripture. After reading the book, I learnt that almost all the sermons that I had attended did not utilize even a quarter of what McMickle come up with in his approach (M cMickle 65). The sermons had no type of limitations. This made the preachers to go out of context and confuse the individuals attending the sermon, me included. The preachers sometimes totally lost the audience's attention to the sermon by going out of topic and confusing it even further by not going back to what they had been initially preaching. This hindered me personally from getting any type of lesson from the sermon, which, I felt, was quite unfair to me, as well as to the congregation. I believe that â€Å"Living Water for Thirsty Souls: Unleashing the Power of Exegetical Preaching† is valuable when it uses the strategy of putting limits to the sermon, so that they can fit well with whatever the scriptures say. A lesson can be learnt from the sermon effectively, and at the same time without struggles to learn something from the sermons offered by priests (McMickle 76). In most of the sermons that I attended, sometimes I would find myself lost among the literature that was being presented for a particular sermon. This is because the preacher would read from the literature that was not related to the sermon at all. This is not good for any sermon because I felt that literature presented toward the congregation ought to be relevant and related to the sermon as a whole. I felt at most of the sermons I attended that I had not learnt anything because of the literature ignorance and the lack of its proper presentation. The literature should be totally in line with the sermon being presented to the congregation. For the better comprehension and easier understanding of the literature it must be explained in depth (McMickle 87). During sermons, a number of preachers utilize a number of expressions and words that have different meanings; sometimes I felt that sermons were misinterpreted. I attended sermons and found it hard sometimes to follow it because of the language that was utilized in the sermons, or the manner the preacher interpreted the scriptures to us. The interpretations would not fit the context of the literature of the scriptures. This made me spend time on trying to figure out why the preacher had come to such an interpretation instead of concentrating on the message that was being passed on by the preacher. I believe that preachers ought to utilize good interpretations and even

Major Events during World War II Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Major Events during World War II - Essay Example Rising to power by Adolf Hitler in the year 1933 reestablished the German army and prepared it well to participate in a war of invasion. Events took place during the World War II. Prior to the real war, growing of tension took about three years, which include the union of Germany and Austria, incursion of Czechoslovakia and Spanish Civil war. The result was the invasion of Poland by German army; war on Germany was declared just two days after the German attack on Poland by Britain and France. United States played a role in supplying Britain with war weapons but they did not take part in it (Alleman). Tripartite Pact Tripartite Pact was created and signed between Germany, Italy and Japan in 1940 with an aim of fostering peace among themselves and the entire world. The threes governments believed that in fostering peace, they would maintain a systematic way of doing things, promote partnership and prosperity among its people. In addition, it is the mandate of the three countries to col laborate with other countries in the globe. These countries in agreement, both recognize and respect the leadership of each country so that they could create new order of things in Europe and Middle Asia (Robinson). They also confirmed that their agreement had no impact on the political status that existed then between the constricting authorities and soviet Russia. The three countries agreed that the validity of the pact was to take effect immediately it was signed and was to last for ten years from the day of signing. Renewal of the pact would depend on negotiations between any of the countries and high constricting authorities. The Lend-Lease Act Lend-Lease Act was a United States Federal Government plan during World War II which was passed on March 11 1941. President Roosevelt authorized the act. United States provided this service with the aim of defending its country from external attacks as well as for economic benefits. This act provided United States with the ability to sup ply war materials and other resources to associated nations while it acted on neutral grounds (Kellogg p.330). The act was based on cash and carry grounds as a result of mutual understanding as a result of weak economic power of England which was unable to purchase and provide transport means for the materials which came to an end in 1945. Attack of Pearl Harbor Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor on the 7th day of December 1941which was the base of about 50000 American military; highest concentration of United States army was. Japanese carriers and ships that escorted the carriers positioned themselves some miles away from the target area and instigated its first group of fighters, bombers, and war planes. Their main aim was to destroy the U.S fleets; the battle ships, carriers and the aircraft (Gropman p.11). Many U.S soldiers were killed, the Pacific fleet of the U.S was damaged although temporarily, which was a success to the Japanese. It was out of this that United States of America affirmed war on Japan (Robinson). Battle of the Coral Sea In May 1942, battle of the Coral Sea was experienced. It was battled in the waters and was the first among the six pacific wars, which was between conflicting aircraft transporter military. The battle was as a result of the Japanese

Target Corporation Essay Example for Free

Target Corporation Essay Operator Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Target Corporation’s Fourth Quarter Earnings Release Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Wednesday, February 26, 2014. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Gregg Steinhafel, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead. Gregg Steinhafel Chairman, President and CEO Good morning, and welcome to our 2013 fourth quarter earnings conference call. On the line with me today are Kathy Tesija, Executive Vice President of Merchandising; and John Mulligan, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This morning, I will provide a high level summary of our fourth quarter results and strategic priorities for the year ahead, and Kathy will discuss category results, guest insights, and the holiday season. And finally, John will provide more detail on our financial performance, along with our financial outlook for 2014. Following John’s remarks, we’ll open the phone lines for a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, we are joined on this conference call by investors and others who are listening to our comments via webcast. Following this conference call, John Hulbert and John Mulligan will be available throughout the day to answer any follow-up questions you may have. Also as a reminder, any forward-looking statements that we make this morning are subject to risks and uncertainties, the most important of wh ich are described in the 8-K we filed this morning. Finally, in these remarks, we refer to adjusted earnings per share, which is a non-GAAP financial measure. A reconciliation to our GAAP results is included in this morning’s press release posted on our Investor Relations website. Target’s fourth quarter financial results reflect better than expected U.S segments performance in the first three weeks of the holiday season, followed by meaningfully softer results, following our December 19th announcement that criminals had gained access to guest payment card data in our U.S stores. In total, fourth quarter comparable sales decreased 2.5% consistent with our updated guidance in January. Throughout the quarter our  team managed the business extremely well, adjusting both inventory and expenses to match the rapidly changing pace of sales. As a result, our US operations generated fourth quarter adjusted earnings per share of $1.30 at the high-end of the updated guidance we provided in January. In Canada, we worked diligently to leverage holiday traffic in an effort to clear excess inventory. Markdowns resulting from this effort drove a very low gross margin rate, but allowed us to reduce average inventory per store in Canada by approximately 30% between the beginning and end of the fourth quarter. Canadian segment EPS dilution was $0.40 in the quarter, $0.05 better than the updated guidance we provided in January. We are pleased that our early cycle Canadian stores have seen the most improvement giving us confidence that we will continue to see continued improvement across all our Canadian stores in 2014. Fourth quarter GAAP EPS of $0.81 reflects U.S and Canadian segment performance along with costs related to our recent restructuring in data breach along with small accounting and tax matters. As we work to address the impact of the mid-December data breach, we have put the welfare of our guests at the center of every decision we’ve made. We have communicated in early and often providing the best information we had about new facts in ongoing on the ongoing investigation. We consistently assured our guests that they would have zero liability for any unauthorized charges on their card accounts resulting from the breach. We increased fraud detection for REDcard holders and extended free credit monitoring and identity theft protection for any guests who has ever shopped one of our U.S stores. We are truly sorry for the impact this breach has had on our guests, team members and other stakeholders and I want to reiterate that we are committed for making things right. We know these initial steps are part of a longer process. We continue to listen to our guests and we know that this incident and recent security breaches at other companies have shaken their confidence in both Target and the U.S payment system more broadly. To rebuild guest confidence, we’re committed to an end-to-end review in cooperation with third-party experts to understand how the breach occurred, the identification and acceleration of solutions to provide enhanced protection in the future and engagement with third-party experts to protect the industry and consumers from future threats. Accordingly, were taking the following steps. We are conducting an end-to-end forensic investigation  of our processes, systems and personnel to make informed decisions on potential security enhancements. We are accelerating the adoption of advanced chip enabled technology, investing more than $100 million to equip our stores and to issue Target branded smart chip credit and debit cards. We have long supported this more secured technology; a broad adoption in the U.S market has been elusive. We believe that recent events will help the industry to reach a tipping point to an accelerated option in the U.S and we are investing to ensure that Target is a clear leader in driving this change. We are working collaboratively with a broad set of stakeholders in the payment card space including banks, retailers, trade associations, payment processors and networks to share in advance best practices and foster future innovation. We helped launch and will be an active leader in retail industry, cyber security and data privacy initiative. In addition, we are investing $5 million in a new coalition with the Better Business Bureau and National Cyber Security Alliance and the National Cyber Forensics and Training Alliance to advance public education around cyber security and the dangers of consumer scams. While we cant yet assess the full impact of this crime against Target and our guests, we’re pleased that sales have started to recover from the trends we observed following breach related announcements in December and January. Importantly, because we’re in a strong financial position, we expect to absorb any near-term financial impacts while continuing to invest in projects that are key to our long-term success. Our Company has a long history of innovation, disciplined management, and a strong long-term financial performance and we are committed to upholding the principles which has have sustained this Company success for many decades. And while 2013 was a disappointing year financially, we have entered the New Year with the right plans in place to grow profitably and generate meaningfully improved financial performance in 2014 and beyond. In the U.S., we have demonstrated our ability to manage the business with discipline and generate strong financial performance even in a challenging environment. In fact, Kathy will outline in more detail we were very pleased with our holiday season results prior to the announcement of the data breach. In preparation for fourth quarter, we may change this to our holiday promotion and marketing and we were pleased that our in stocks were running at all-time highs. As a result, U.S segment fourth quarter  sales were running ahead of plan prior to December 19th. Looking ahead, we will apply the insights we gained in the holiday season to connect with our guests at delivering merchandize and promotions thoughtfully designed to appeal to them based on whats on their mind at each poi nt in the year, moving Target beyond compelling, to becoming irresistible for our guests. We made enormous progress in our multichannel efforts throughout 2013 as we meaningfully increased conversion both on our website and on our mobile apps. We acquired Chefs Catalog, Cooking.com and Dermstore, extending our online assortment by providing our guests access to additional high-end brands in key home and beauty categories. We launched Cartwheel, our unique mobile savings tool which has far exceeded expectations in both adoption and engagement and we accelerated our investments in flexible fulfillment. As a result, throughout the year, growth in our digital traffic and sales outpaced industry averages. We launched in-store pick up chain-wide at the beginning of November and with very little marketing, this new offering became a meaningful driver of digital traffic and sales. Our store teams did an outstanding job delivering great service when guests arrived to pick up these orders and this is particularly impressive since we launched the service during the busiest time of t he year. We will continue to invest in systems, data and processes to enhance our flexible fulfillment capabilities in 2014 and beyond. In our stores we are committed to enhancing the guest experience by adding dedicated service to key categories like beauty, baby and electronics and by providing training and technology that allows our stores team to go beyond providing basic service to solving problems for our guests. And were continuing to pilot innovations to our store formats. Based on the initial rollout of the CityTarget format and the high single digit comparable sales were seeing in our second year CityTarget stores, were analyzing opportunities to redeem the size and enhance the flexibility of this format opening up a wider universe of potential sites in dense urban areas. While on the work on CityTarget continues, weve also developed a separate smaller format called Target Express at about 15% of the size of one of our general merchandize stores, we believe this design provides us w ith a fantastic opportunity to expand into new trade areas providing a convenient solution to guests who can easily visit one of our other formats. While we expect to offer a carefully curated assortment in frequency  categories like food, health care, beauty and other household essentials, Target Express will also offer discretionary categories including home, electronics and seasonal. Throughout the store we will feature our own brands which offer guests an unbeatable combination of quality and price. We plan to open our first pilot location of this format here in our home market in July so we can carefully study both operational and financial results before we determine our plans to expand this format to other markets. Throughout the organization we continue to find new opportunities to optimize expenses, freeing up resources we can apply to new initiatives. In 2013 our teams saved approximately $200 million by reprioritizing their activities and finding more efficient ways to get things done. Our expense optimization efforts are not a short-term project but a complete overall of the way we work and the team continues to fi nd new opportunities. As a result, we expect the benefit of our expense optimization efforts to reach $1 billion in annualized savings by 2015. Im proud that our entire team has embraced this effort to transform how we work. In Canada the team has moved from a year focused on opening a record number of stores to optimizing the business in run state. As we enter 2014 with a much cleaner inventory position, the teams number one operational focus is on in-stocks, ensuring we have the right quantity of each item in the right place at the right time. In addition, we continue to invest in technology and training to enhance both the tools our team uses and their ability to deploy them most effectively. Were also continuing to implement innovative marketing and merchandizing programs in Canada to raise awareness for our frequency categories like grocery, household essentials, beauty and healthcare. Throughout 2014 we will focus on conveying the depth and breadth of our assortment in those categories and the unbeatable value we provide to our everyday pricing, 5% of the awards, price match and our flier. With enhanced guest awareness of our unbeatable prices combined with the benefit of improved operations, we expect guest shopping frequency to build throughout 2014, driving improvement in sales and profitability. While 2013 will clearly be remembered as the challenging year, I am proud of teams efforts to transform our business and position the company for long-term success. And I want to sincerely thank the Target team for their tireless effort to help our guests recover from the data breach. While there is much more work  to be done, Im inspired by their singular focus on our guests and making things right. As a result, Im confident we will look back on this incident and see that we emerged from it even stronger than before. Now Kathy will provide more detail on our fourth quarter results and key initiatives as we enter 2014. Kathy? Kathy Tesija EVP, Merchandising Thanks, Gregg. In our last conference call, we outlined our plans for the holiday season and mentioned that fourth quarter sales were on track through the first half of November. As we progressed through Black Friday week and the first two weeks of December, guests continued to respond to our promotions and sales ran ahead of our plan. Following the data breach announcement and the rapid change in the pace of our sales, the team reacted quickly making nimble adjustments to minimize our excess inventory. This quick response allowed us to end the year with a clean inventory position. And while our fourth quarter gross margin reflected the addition of clearance activity resulting from the sales slowdown, our team did a great job minimizing the impact. As we built our holiday plans, our goal was to cut through the clutter and reach our guests with compelling offers on exciting merchandize, specifically we aligned our weekly deals and events so guests were receiving a clear message across all channels. And because our guests are budget conscious and love to find deals, we intentionally layered promotions across our circular, cartwheel and our catalog to provide unbeatable value. We used our direct channels to drive urgency at key points of the season and we offered more broad attention-getting promotions like 40% off sweaters. Consistent with past years, we featured hot deals on key items but attracted more attention by offering deeper discounts on fewer items and we were very pleased with the guest response. For the quarter overall, our non-discretionary categories generally saw the strongest sales performance. However, on our more discretionary categories electronics saw an increase in fourth quarter comparable sales led by mobile phones, tablets and video game hardware and software. We also saw relative strength in our sporting goods and housewares categories. Digital channels had a very strong holiday season. Thanksgiving was our biggest digital sales day ever with mobile devices accounting for a full 25% of those sales. We were recently recognized as having the most browsed app by a smartphone and tablet in 2013  and Mobile Commerce Daily just named T arget Mobile Retailer and Commerce Website of the Year. This is the second time weve been named Mobile Retailer of the Year and were pleased to be the only retailer to be honored with the award twice. An important factor in our digital success was the fourth quarter rollout of the opportunity to buy online and pick up in-store. In-store pick up requests represented about 10% of fourth quarter digital orders but they peaked at a much higher rate before Christmas as guests relied on the service as a great solution for last-minute gift shopping. About 30% of store visits to pick up an online order resulted in store shopping on that same trip and the size of that store transaction was much larger than an average store trip. While weve rolled out the capabilities with an external commitment to have orders ready in four hours or less, our team quickly attained our internal goal to have most orders ready in one hour or better. Our survey showed consistently high levels of guest satisfaction with this service and this capability has accelerated our mobile conversion rates. Were also pleased with the continued growth of Cartwheel, our digital savings app, which ended 2013 with over 5 million users who have already saved more than $43 million. Younger guests are particularly engaged by Cartwheel as more than half of its users are Millennials, a much higher percentage than they represent in our overall guest base. Redemption rates on Cartwheel are more than 10 times higher than DC and other direct channels like receipt marketing and email and our analysis indicate that its driving incremental trips and sales. Our pre-Black Friday deals resulted in one of the biggest days ever for Cartwheel as they drove one-third of our active users into Target stores on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We continue to work to enhance the Cartwheel experience. We recently added the ability to scan bar codes to find out if theres a Cartwheel deal on an item and added the capability to sign up for Cartwheel directly through a Target account and email while continuing to provide access to the App through Facebook. As Gregg mentioned, we continue to listen to our guests to understand how we can help them move beyond the data breach and feel confident in shopping at Target. While sales have started to recover in recent weeks and sentiment metrics have begun to improve most notably among our best guests. We continu e to invest to ensure this recovery continues. Beyond our efforts in data  security and chip enabled technology were applying insights from the holiday season to make our merchandise stores and digital channels even more irresistible to our guests. We continue to innovate in ways that differentiate both our product assortments and the guest experience, and we’re investing in pricing and promotions to make our value proposition even stronger. We’re very pleased with the response to Peter Pilotto for Target our most recent designer partnership which launched earlier this month. This collection which features a limited edition assortment of women’s apparel, accessories and swimwear is available at most of our U.S. and Canadian stores and on target.com. We have also partnered with Net-a-Porter.com to offer a curated assortment of the collection to fans across the globe. With lots of social media buzz we a saw long lines outside many of our urban stores on the morning of the launch, and the collection quickly became Net-a-Porter’s fastest selling collaboration in history. Based on last years results Target and Sports Illustrated are once again partnering in support of the magazines annual swimsuit issue w hich is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Target is the exclusive mass retail advertiser and official marketing partner for the issue. This years partnership includes the new 20 page flip cover that celebrates swimsuit style over the past 50 years and features Target’s limited edition swimwear collection. The collection launched at Target stores and on target.com February 17, in advance of the issues on stand date and includes 10 black, gold and ivory swimsuits priced from $15 to $30. Earlier this month, Target began offering AMBAR a new apparel collection designed with the Latina guest in mind. AMBAR is set in 50 U.S. stores this month and is also available on target.com. The line of apparel and accessories features vibrant prints and flattering cuts and silhouettes. This stylish and affordable collection has items ranging from $17 to $40. This spring Target will introduce an assortment of premium skincare featuring seven notable brands, four of which will be exclusively sold at Target. 29 by Lydia Mondavi, Borghese, Laneige and MD Complete by Dr. Zelickson along side industry favorite Vichy, La Roche Posay and Own Skin Health. These brands will be merchandised in two distinct sections, dermatological skincare and specialty skincare, and they have already launched on target.com. We’ll begin rolling out the assortment to 749 U.S. Target stores beginning in March. So whats likely to be the biggest Blu-ray  and DVD release of the year Target will offer an exclusive addition of Catching Fire the second film in The Hunger Games trilogy in stores and on target.com next month. The Target exclusive Blu-ray addition includes 45 minutes of exclusive content from never before seen footage and cast interviews to a behind the scenes looks at the making of the film. This spring award winning singer Shakira is teaming up with Target for her 10th studio album and our exclusive deluxe edition featuring three bonus tracks hit stores on March 25. We announced the partnership and kicked off album preordering with a special spot during the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in January. Last month we became the exclusive retailer to feature Beats music playlists. Beats music is curated digital music streaming services that allows its users to peep into the personal music librarie s of their favorite artists and brands and have them create playlists just for them. By subscribing to Target’s playlist guest can expect a very mix of songs inspired by Target’s rich heritage of music and the taste of the millions who shop for albums at Target each year. In December we launched The Awesome Shop, a beta site that features the top target products recently pinned on Pinterest. The site lets guests explore, get inspired and see what other guests love just like they do in stores. Awesome Shop highlighted the best of the best by only featuring items at the target.com review of four stars or better. We’re also leveraging Pinterest in another unique way to collaborate with three of the sites most influential pinners on a series of party planning collections that will make it easy to throw a Pinterest worthy event. Joy Cho of Oh Joy, Jan Halvarson of Poppytalk and Kate Arends of Wit Delight will each create limited time only collections launched over the course of 2014 including party decor, paper products and serving pieces designed in their signature esthetic. Beyond differentiated merchandise, we continue to provide enhanced service in key areas of the store. Based on guest response to last years launch we have expanded the Target Beauty Concierge’s program to more than 300 stores across the country with new markets including New York, New Jersey, San Francisco and Dallas-Fort Worth. These beauty consultants are brand agnostic and provide guests with detailed, unbiased information and a friendly face in what can often be an intermediating category. We also continue to see great results from the pilot of our new baby layout, a completely redesigned shopping  experience that offers guests inspiring insightful solutions combined with the great value they’ve come to expect from Target. This new layout features a dedicated service desk with a knowledgeable baby advisor to help guests navigate the area and provide unbiased product information. Digital screens and iPads feature inspiration and interactive comparison tools and Bab yCenter content such as buying guides and product reviews We have also incorporated an in department registry kiosk for expecting mom’s or guests looking to give a gift. Merchandised displays have been lowered so guests can more easily interact with large products by travel systems in stores. We have removed barriers to enhance navigation between apparel, gear and baby essentials and we have highlighted the availability of additional online only items in key categories. This summer we plan to grow from 30 stores to more than 200 locations featuring this enhanced baby experience. And based on encouraging initial results in 2014 we’ll expand our test of using mannequins in apparel in our largest format U.S. stores to elevate the store experience, create an enhanced sense of discovery and bring our unique deigns to life. We also continued to augment our digital capabilities driving traffic and sales to all of our channels. Online our top priority in 2014 is continuing to improve the guest experience. All of our efforts will be designed to make things simple, seamless and enjoyable for our guests. To support this priority we continue to hire external talent with deep functional expertise in online merchandising, site merchandising, mobile and analytics. We have recently made enhancements focused on search, product information and checkout making it easier for guests to browse and purchase. In addition now nearly all store products are viable online making this the only place that guests can use Target’s full assortment. Importantly we’re making enhancements while continuing to focus on stability and speed, as a result target.com consistently ranks in the top 10 for retailer site availability and performance. Given the profile of our guests, mobile is more important at Target than for many of our peers. For example, Target’s guest traffic from tablets and mobile phones is greater than our traffic from traditional computers and the shift towards mobile shows no signs of slowing down. In fact usage of the Target App doubled in the short period between last su mmer and the end of the year. To maintain our strong momentum in mobile we’re testing and learning from new features including List  Building, Mapping and Cartwheel capabilities launched during the holiday season. We’re improving conversion by streamlining checkouts and enhancing product information and dynamic content and we are investing to amplify the in-store mobile experience by rolling out guided maps, in-store search and expanded assortment chain wide later this year. We also continue to invest in our flexible fulfillment capabilities which combine the strengths of our digital, store and distribution aspects to provide speed and convenience for our guests. These capabilities allow our stores to add value in new ways, serve our guests as both showroom and fulfillment centers. Following the holiday seasons success of in-store pick up we are moving quickly to roll out the capabilities to shift online orders from our stores this fall. This new capability will create multiple benefits for both T arget as our guests, including shorter shipping times, reduced expenses, lower markdown rates and improved in-stocks. And because our investments in flexible fulfillment drive greater utilization of our existing stores and distribution center assets, we expect to earn an outstanding return on these investments over time. Finally, were pleased with initial performance of Target Ticket, our streaming video service and we continue to invest in features to better serve guest changing needs and behaviors both inside and outside their home. In 2014 we will coordinate our promotions across channels to provide irresistible video offers across our stores, Target.com and Target Ticket. While our fourth quarter results softened following the December 19 announcement of the data breach, we are pleased with the guest response to our holiday season merchandizing and marketing efforts and were confident in our plans for 2014. As always our focus remains on our guests helping them regain their confidence in their Target while delivering irresistible content and experiences in every channel. We believe that our efforts will drive a continued recovery in the pace of our sales and position Target for profitable growth in 2014 and beyond. Now, John will share his insights on our fourth quarter financial performance and our plans for the coming year. John? John Mulligan EVP and CFO Thanks, Kathy. Our fourth quarter financial results reflect strong efforts by our team to handle separate challenges in both our U.S. and Canadian segments. In the U.S. comparable sales declined 2.5% consistent with the  updated guidance we provided in our January press release. This sales performance reflects a 5.5% decline in transactions partially offset by an increase in average ticket. Prior to the announcement of the data breach, fourth quarter comparable sales were running positive reflecting the success of our holiday merchandizing marketing plan. Immediately following news of the breach, sales turned meaningfully negative but began to recover in January. And while its impossible to measure precisely, we believe we would have seen even more improvement had there not been extreme weather across much of the country. Fourth quarter sales penetration on our REDcards was 20.9%, up 5.4 percentage points from a year ago. While the rate of increase slowed down following the breach, year-over-year penetration continued to grow hundreds of basis points through the end of the quarter. Fourth quarter U.S. EBITDA and EBIT margin rates were down more than a percentage point from last years rates, which we were advised to reflect combined results from our former U.S. retail and credit card segments. These profit margins were below our expectations going into the quarter, driven almost entirely by gross margin rate which declined about 20 basis points from the year ago. This performance reflects about 20 basis points of benefit from this years change in vendor payments offset by higher than expected markdowns related to the 10% off we offered prior to Christmas as well as the impact of clearance markdowns at the end of the holiday season. Margin mix was somewhat less favorable than the recent quarters, driven by strong sales in electronics. While below our expectations, fourth quarter U.S. segment gross margin rate was remarkably strong considering the team had to rapidly manage excess inventory in the middle of the quarter when we experienced a sudden change in the pa ce of sales following the data breach announcement. Our fourth quarter U.S. segment SGA rate was 18.4%, about 110 basis points above last years revised rate. About 50 basis points of this headwind was related to the credit card portfolio reflecting a smaller asset base, last years reserve release and this years profit sharing arrangement with TD Bank. Another 20 basis points of headwind was driven by this years change in member payments. The remaining unfavorability reflects the deleveraging effort of negative comp sales. The fact that we experienced only 40 basis points of deleverage reflects strong control of variable expenses, given the magnitude of our comparable sales decline. In the Canadian segment, sales  came in just below expectations. Importantly, as Gregg mentioned, we took advantage of holiday traffic to clear through a significant amount of excess inventory in the quarter. And while we expect some small lingering issues with long lean receipts this year, the Canadian segment ended 2013 in a much cleaner inventory position, paving the way for smoother operations in 2014. In all, the segment drove $0.40 of EPS dilution in th e fourth quarter better than the expectations we provided in our January press release. Turning now to our consolidated metrics, fourth quarter interest expense was 21% lower than last year reflecting the continued benefit of debt retirement funded by the proceeds from the sale of the credit card portfolio. We paid dividends of $0.43 per share in the quarter, an increase of more than 19% from fourth quarter 2012. This was our 185th consecutive quarter in which our company has paid a dividend and 2013 marked the 42nd year of annual dividend increases, a track record of few companies to match. Consistent with last quarter, we didnt purchase any shares in the fourth quarter reflecting current performance and our desire to maintain our debt rating in the middle A range. This approach aligns with our longstanding point of view on capital deployment. First, we invest what we believe is appropriate in our core business. Second, we support the dividend which weve grown annually for more than four decades. And third, we use share repurchase to return cash within the limits of our middle A debt rating. We believe a middle A rating is strategically important as it supports our ability to reliably deliver on our unbeatable pricing strategy over time. In addition, our balance sheet provides the flexibility to maintain our long-term focus in the face of unexpected events like the data breach enabling inves tment and strategic initiatives like flexible fulfillment while we deal with a temporary setback in traffic to sales along with other costs related to the breach. In addition to operating results in the U.S. and Canada, our fourth quarter GAAP earnings reflects several items that reduced EPS by approximately $0.09. These items include charges related to our January restructuring, data breach related costs net of an insurance receivable and continued reduction in a beneficial interest asset partially offset by a small benefit from a resolution of income tax matters. Combining fourth quarter results with performance in the first nine months of 2013 yields full year results that reflect the impact of clear successes and certain challenges. In our  U.S. segment, full year comparable sales declined 0.4% well below our expectations going into the year. This reflects the tougher than expected consumer environment including the impact on the payroll tax increase which just annualized last month, the fourth quarter impact of the data breach and recent headwinds from unfavorable weather, as youve heard from many other retailers. On our U.S. sales, we earned a gross margin rate of 29.8% in 2013, up about 10 basis points from 2012. This rate reflects about 20 basis points of benefit from this years change in vendor payments combined with very strong underlying margin performance in the face of softer than expected sales. Throughout the year, Kathys team did a great job managing inventory resulting in outstanding in-stock levels while avoiding unnecessary clearance markdowns. Our full year SGA expense rate in the U.S. was 20%, up about 90 basis points from last years revised rate. Contrary to what you might initially think, this reflects outstanding performance in light of softer than expected sales and some notable challenges representing more than $600 million of incremental pressure. Including credit card portfolio income, which as you know reduces our SGA rate, about $400 million lower than 2012 reflecting profit sharing with TD, prior year reserve reductions and a smaller asset base this year. And more than $200 million of expense pressure from incremental investments in technology and supply chain to support our multichannel efforts. Without these impacts, our SGA expense rate would have been slightly higher than 2012 but would have been neutral without this years change in vendor payments. This is better expense performance than wed expect on a decline in comparable sales and was driven primarily by two factors; outstanding performance by our stores organization which continued to provide outstanding guest service while delivering productivity increases and our company-wide expense optimization efforts through which our teams are finding better ways to work while deprioritizing less productive activities. As Gregg mentioned, the team continues to find new opportunities to optimize expenses and we expect to reach $1 billion in annualized savings by 2015 helping to fund our efforts to drive profitable growth over the next several years. For full year 2013, U.S. REDcard penetration grew nearly 6 percentage points to 19.3% of sales as more and more guests increased their level of engagement and their spending with Target. Penetration in Kansas City where we began offering  REDcard awards a year ahead of the rest of the country continued to run well ahead of the U.S. overall. Importantly, as part of our broader effort to rebuild traffic and sales in 2014 we will work to reaccelerate REDcard growth in light of the recent slowdown in growth weve seen following the data breach. In Canada in 2013 we generated just over $1.3 billion in sales on 124 stores which were opened on average for a little more than half the year. These sales were well below our plan going into the year leading to grea ter than expected markdowns on a meaningful amount of excess inventory Expense rate were unusually high as well as a result of opening early cycle stores with too many payroll hours, incurring incremental expense relating to clearing inventory and experiencing less leverage on fixed expenses. In the face of these challenges, the team worked tirelessly to improve operations and work through excess inventory throughout the year, clearing the way for an acceleration of sales and profitability beginning this year. Our early cycle store continued to outperform later cycle stores giving is confidence that our operations will continue to become more efficient as our business matures. And having dramatically reduced the congestion in our Canadian supply chain, we will increase the intensity of our marketing message in 2014 regarding value and assortment in our frequency categories. Over time we expect this will lead our Canadian guests to choose Target more often in these categories, driving meaningful increases in traffic and sales. Turning to capital deployment, our total capital investment was about $3.5 billion in 2013, somewhat lower than expected as U.S CapEx of about $1.9 billion was approximately $300 million lower than anticipated. This outcome doesnt reflect a change in strategy, but is simply the result of a lower than expected cost for certain projects and retiming of suspending into 2014. Having sold our credit card portfolio, for about $5.7 billion in March, we significantly reduced our net debt position in 2013, including the early retirement of Haikupon debt. And importantly even in a year of peak CapEx and dilution relating to the Canadian segment combined with the impact of softer than expected U.S sales, we still have the capacity to return about $2.5 billion to our shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchase. With that as context, lets turn now to our outlook for 2014. But before we get to the numbers, I want to discuss a change in our reporting and guidance practices in 2014. Given that our Canadian segment is  now fully operating, beginning with the first quarter of 2014 we will no longer exclude Canadian segment performance from adjusted EPS. To allow for appropriate comparison, l ast years adjusted EPS will also reflect Canadian segment performance as well. With that, lets turn to our full-year outlook beginning with sales. While trends have improved in recent weeks, severe winter weather has been a headwind and we continue to see the impact of the data breach on guest sentiment and traffic. We believe that we will continue to see muted trends in the next few months, but the breach impact will diminish throughout the year as we engage in a vigorous effort to address our guests’ concerns and provide irresistible content offers driving business to our stores and digital channels. In addition, while economic trends are improving, we continue to expect our lower and middle income guests to shop very cautiously in 2014. With that backdrop, our current view is that U.S comparable sales will grow in the range of 0% to 2% in 2014. On those sales we expect a U.S segment EBITDA rate of 10.1% to 10.3%, meaning EBITDA dollar should grow between 5% and 8% this year. Among the drivers of EBITDA margin, we expect gross margin will improve 30 or 40 basis points from our 2013 rate of 29.8%, reflecting improved cl earance markdown rates and more significantly the gross margin benefit of our expense optimization efforts. These benefits will be partially offset by the impact of additional promotional activities and continued investment in 5% REDcard rewards. We expect the U.S segment SGA expense rate slightly better than last year’s 20% rate, reflecting continued discipline expense control and the benefit of our expense optimization efforts offset by our continued investments in distribution and technology in support of our multi-channel efforts. We expect these (indiscernible) investments to be worth $0.05 to $0.10 of incremental EPS pressure in 2014. In Canada, we expect total sales will be approximately double our 2013 experience. As we annualize last year’s124 openings and begin generating comparable sales growth in mature stores. On those sales we expect to earn a much higher gross margin rate in a range approaching 30%. But clearly we continue to see some near-term volatility until the Until the Canadian business matures. While we expect to see better fixed expense leverage in 2014 , the SGA rate will likely remain well above our long-term outlook in a range approaching 40%. Altogether, this will lead to a Canadian segment EBITDA margin rate of minus 8% to minus 10%,  representing more than $400 million of expected EBITDA improvement from 2013. We expect U.S capital expenditures of $2.1 billion $2.3 billion, up slightly from actual 2013 spending. The mix of U.S CapEx will continue to tilt from investments in new stores towards supply chain and technology as we accelerate our multi-channel efforts and continue to find a limited number of new store sites that meet our strategic and financial criteria. I should also note that U.S CapEx reflects incremental investments related to our recent decision to accelerate deployment of chip enabled card readers to all of our U.S stores before the end of the year. In Canada we expect 2014 capital expenditures in the $300 million to $400 million range, down more than $1 billion from peak spending in 2013. We expect once again to raise our annual dividend in the neighborhood of 20% this year, which will mark our 43rd consecutive annual increase. And even with a temperate outlook for near-term traffic and sales and understanding there will be further costs relating to the data breach, our current outlook envision share repurchase capacity of $1 billion to $2 billion in 2014, beginning later in the year as our business stabilizes and we have more clarity on potential breach related costs. Altogether, these expectations would lead to full-year adjusted EPS representing results from operations in the U.S and Canada of $3.85 to $4.15. This estimate excludes approximately $0.07 of dilution related to the continued reduction in the beneficial interest asset. These 2014 expectations represent an improvement of more than 20% from combined U.S and Canadian segment results in 2013. Please note that our full-year outlook does not include potential additional costs relating to the data breach beyond what we already recorded in the fourth quarter, as they’re not estimable at this time. While I realize this may result in a wide range of speculation on the magnitude of these costs, given that our investigation of breach is ongoing it would not be appropriate to say anything more about it than we already have this morning. Regardless of the ultimate dollar amounts, as Greg mentioned, we have the financial strength to move beyond these near-term impacts while we continue to in vest in the future. And as always, we are focused on whats most important, addressing the concerns of our guests and helping them to feel confident shopping with us. Now lets briefly turn to our first quarter outlook. In the U.S we expect first quarter comparable sales in the range of flat to down 2%. So far in February  comparable sales have been running within that range, ahead of our forecast and nearly flat to last year. And I should note while growth isn’t running where it had been earlier in 2013, REDcard penetration so far in February has been running 100s of basis points ahead of last year. On our first quarter U.S sales, we expect an EBITDA margin rate of 9.7% to 9.9%. In Canada, we expect to generate first quarter sales in a range of $400 million to $450 million with EBITDA of minus $150 million to minus $170 million. In light of this near-term operating outlook, we dont expect to have the capacity to repurchase shares in the first quarter, but we expect to resume this activity later in the year. Altogether, our expectations would lead to first quarter adjusted EPS reflecting operating results in the U.S and Canada in the range of $0.60 to $0.75, excluding $0.02 relating to the reduction in the beneficial interest asset and any potential costs related to the data breach. While this has been a challenging year, we are proud of the work of our team and we believe we have the right plans in place to generate meaningfully improved performance in 2014. As we focus on making Target irresistible for our guests, both today and over time, we believe we will go profitably for many years to come. With that, well conclude todays prepared remarks. Now Greg, Kathy and I will be happy to respond to your questions. uestion-and-Answer Session