Writing Help Archives - Page 1624 of 3873

how well has the company performed as seen through its performance ratios?

The Task
This assignment is concerned with the financial performance and financial position of a company over a period of time. Key areas of interest are:
Performance: how well has the company performed as seen through its performance ratios?
Financing/Position: how does the company choose to finance its activities and investments and what are the implications of these choices for its financial position?

Your position is that of an analyst working in a financial advisory firm. Your role is to monitor and evaluate publicly available information about the company, reporting your findings to members of the executive team.
Your line manager, Maya Walden, has emailed you the following message:
‘Hi. We have been approached by a group of high net worth private investors in Dubai who are looking to make long-term, strategic investments into online retailing industries. Their representative, Liam, who is based in London, has expressed a particular interest in the global, fashion, retail industry sector. I have asked James, the finance intern, to pull together some ratios for ASOS plc in an excel spreadsheet and pass them on to you.
Can you prepare a report, no more than 1,200 words please, which clearly explains ASOS plc’s investing and financing activities and profits performance? The most recent annual report that we have been able to obtain is for the year ended 31 August 2021, so you should certainly use that. Could your report also explain anything that they have been investing in and how the company is being financed? You will need to present the ratios in your report, but you will not need to explain the meaning of the ratios themselves.
Could you conclude your report by stating whether or not, based on your analysis of the numbers along with other research, you think that ASOS plc would make a good long-term investment? You will find it helpful to use the information in the Strategic Report at the front of ASOS plc’s annual report to help you interpret the ratios but could you also include some research from newspaper articles and/or from news websites to back up your conclusions?
Your report must set out who it is to, who it is from, be dated, give a heading and include a brief introduction and conclusion. The main body of your report must include a discussion of the ratios (first of all for investing and financing, and secondly for the profits performance), to include information from the sources that you have decided to use.
Clarity of written English is important. Liam’s clients are highly educated but English is not their first language. Also, we need to respect the value of their time, so the report must be clear and direct. It is important that they can understand its message without having to think too much about it.

How do you manage your time and prioritize your responsibilities in order to ensure you meet your goals?

Topic:
Communication Strategies

Description
How do you manage your time and prioritize your responsibilities in order to ensure you meet your goals?
What are some ways you can prepare for an interview? Identify and describe each.

Identify the main sources of company finance and the consequences of different capital structures.

You are required to
Review and evaluate the information provided
Source additional publicly available and relevant information e.g. management commentary type disclosure in annual reports, newspaper articles, websites etc.
Write a formal report addressed to your line manager, Maya Walden that addresses the request in the message.

Word limit: 1,200 words

Sources
Company information: https://www.asos.com/about/
Annual report: https://www.asosplc.com/investor-relations/results-centre/
Online links to The Guardian Business, The Financial Times and BBC news are provided via READING LISTS on moodle.

Learning outcomes relevant to this assignment
Locate, evaluate and use information from multiple sources to critically appraise the financial performance and position of companies in the light of their strategic and operational objectives.
Identify the main sources of company finance and the consequences of different capital structures.

Assume that you have been contracted to help a brand of your choice enter a new market. The choice of market is up to the individual student and can be geographic, transferring to an online platform, or consumer profile driven.

Coursework Task

There is 1 part to this coursework.

Assume that you have been contracted to help a brand of your choice enter a new market. The choice of market is up to the individual student and can be geographic, transferring to an online platform, or consumer profile driven.

This coursework should present an integrated marketing plan in report format. The report should adhere to the following structure (i.e. the SOSTAC model):
⦁ Situational Analysis (e.g. Brand/company information, background to existing brand elements; competitor analysis; customer journey)
⦁ Objectives
⦁ Strategy – based around CBBE model
⦁ Tactics
⦁ Actions (including budget and timetable).
⦁ Control (including implementation and metrics for evaluation).
⦁ References

Word Count and Format

The word count guide for part 1 of the coursework is not more than 3,500 words (+/- 10%). Anything over 3,850 will be disregarded. Please state the word count for both parts of the assignment on the first page of your assignment. The word count excludes any title page, the reference list at the end of the report, or any appendices. However, please resist the temptation to put material that really should be in the main text into appendices.

All material (academic and other) that you cite should be properly referenced in the text and in the reference list (in Harvard style) at the end of your report.

Coursework Marking Rubric

The following criteria is used to assess both aspects of the coursework.
⦁ Application of Theory
⦁ Evidence Base
⦁ Critical Analysis and Interpretation
⦁ Overall Presentation and Structure
⦁ Creativity/Originality of Report
⦁ Recommendations

Please see the rubric at the end of this coursework brief for further details of the criteria against which you will be assessed, and descriptors of performance on the coursework for each assessment criterion.

Coursework Submission

The deadline date is provided above. One electronic copy must be uploaded to the submission point for the module on LEARN by the submission deadline.

You must use the following file naming convention for your work. You should not include your name anywhere on your assignment. You should also include the filename in the header of your assignment.

StudentNumber – Module code – Coursework component (e.g. B123456-20BSP062-CW1)

Your submission should be one document only (i.e. no loose appendices etc), preferably in Word or as a pdf (not scanned copy). If your assignment consists of different documents in varying formats you will need to embed them in a Word document or convert them to pdf and upload one document. The file size limit for your submission is 20MB.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You need to ensure you back up your coursework and any other important documents. Information on data storage can be found here: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/services/it/student/storage/.

Losing your work through technical failure is not a valid reason for a Mitigating Circumstances claim or a coursework extension request.

Extensions and Mitigating Circumstances

If you have any other problems with meeting the deadline for this coursework you may wish to request a 48-hour extension and/or submit a Mitigating Circumstances claim. This must be requested in advance via:

Coursework Extension Link: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/students/handbook/exams/extensions/
Mitigating Circumstances Link: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/students/handbook/exams/mitigating-circumstances/

Consultation and Feedback

The lecturer(s) are available of course for consultation and queries between class sessions and the assignment deadline. Feedback could be particularly useful for suggesting bits of reading that relate to a specific issue that you are working on or for clarifying the brief or marking criteria.
Please note, lecturers will not comment on a full draft version of reports but will comment on a summary/plan (of up to 400 words), if you want some reassurance that your approach is viable. Equally, for presentations, lecturers might scan some slides or look at an outline for a presentation but will not provide comments on a full draft of a presentation.

How to improve management of type 2 diabetes among black peoples?

Topic:
Health project

Description
this is the title of my dissertation How to improve management of type 2 diabetes among black peoples?
I need the statistics i use to help justify my topics so it would be useful to know something about the numbers of
people have serious problems from their diabetes

Start a brand campaign management proposal for starting the franchise, Heavenly Desserts, in Nairobi Kenya

Topic:
Brand management

Language style
UK English
Description
Brand management, geographical , starting the franchise Heavenly Desserts in Nairobi Kenya

analyze and reflect on factors that commonly lead to the success or failure of a project in various organisations.

Topic:
Project success or failure memo

Description
For this business memo, it’s purpose is to analyze and reflect on factors that commonly lead to the
success or failure of a project in various organisations.

identify the key arguments/relevant concepts in the videos. Summarize what the authors meant, or at least what you think the authors meant, and try to see the world with that theoretical lense.

Description
You should write a response to the documentary “Sexual Stereotypes in the Media” and Kilbourne’s video,
“Killing Us Softly 4.” The paper should reflect a critical reading of the texts and your reaction. If you can find
the “Sexual Stereotypes in the Media” documentary that’s great. In case you can’t, I have attached a document in
additional materials that is the script for the video. Please use it to do this assignment. Here is the Kilbourne
video: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/12253
I was unable to find a free version for the Kilbourne video. It is rentable for $4.99. If you are able to charge me
somehow for this, please let me know.
As always, the paper should reflect a critical reading of the texts and your reaction. Think of the paper as having
two parts:
1) Make sure to identify the key arguments/relevant concepts in the videos. Summarize what the authors meant,
or at least what you think the authors meant, and try to see the world with that theoretical lense.
2) Critique the theory (feminist theory) from an outside perspective, finding its strengths but also its flaws.
Please use proper APA in-text citations and include reference page the end.

Are ethnic inequalities in the UK’s maternity services causing higher morbidity and mortality rates for BAME women – A literature review

DISSERTATION
Are ethnic inequalities in the UK’s maternity services causing higher morbidity and mortality rates for BAME women – A literature review
Please decide the best research question for searching, using PICO if a quantitative approach is considered best.

Choosing papers for inclusion
Once you have completed your searches you are likely to have found a number of papers. So how do you narrow them down to the ones you will ultimately include?
As you have searched on a number of databases, you will have some duplicates of papers. Check and exclude any duplicates first.
Review on title. Scan the titles of the papers and see if they match your search inclusion/exclusion criteria. If they don’t, then exclude them.
Review on abstract. Read the abstracts of the remaining papers and see if they match your search inclusion/exclusion criteria. If they don’t, then exclude them.
Review full paper. The papers you are left with you will need to read in full to determine whether or not they meet your search criteria. This is the point at which you will determine the papers to include.

How many papers do I need for the review?
This largely depends on the quality and content of the papers. There is no hard and fast rule, but on average around 8-12 papers will be enough. You are unlikely to have enough to discuss with less than 6 papers. Similarly, if you have too many (15 or more) you will have too much to cover and not enough words available to do this in your review.

How do I know my papers are suitable?
You need to include original research papers only. This excludes opinion papers or commentaries.
You will often find review papers when searching; these are published literature reviews. These can be useful for background, substantiation etc. However, you are conducting your own review and need to reach your own conclusions about the published literature. Your review question may be different to those in published reviews or you may review different literature, so do not be concerned that your conclusions may be different.

PRISMA flowcharts please use the 3rd one on the list
PRISMA flowcharts are a common and clear method of displaying results from your searches. Here is the link to the PRISMA website with the interactive flow diagram. http://www.prisma-statement.org/PRISMAStatement/FlowDiagram
You can download word examples from the website.

http://www.prisma-statement.org/PRISMAStatement/FlowDiagram
When referencing this new PRISMA flow diagram, please use the following paper: Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, Boutron I, Hoffmann TC, Mulrow CD, et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ 2021;372:n71. doi: 10.1136/bmj.n71

What is research ethics?

Research ethics are practices to ensure that research conducted on human subjects, or their tissues organs or data, is carried out in a way that protects the safety, dignity, rights, and well-being of research participants.

Why do we need ethics in research?

To protect the public (participants) from harm.

Nuremburg Code 1947 Originally established after the Second World War to protect individuals from harm and prevention of research being completed without consent. This followed allegations of enforced non-consensual research experiments on concentration camp prisoners, leading to harm or death of the individuals concerned. Ten key points were introduced, the main one being that of informed consent. See the link here for the ten principles. (University login required off campus)

Declaration of Helsinki 1964 The World Medical Association established recommendations guiding biomedical research involving human subjects. The Declaration governs international research ethics and defines rules for “research combined with clinical care” and “non-therapeutic research.” This guidance has been subsequently amended and can be found here.

General ethical principles

It is important to consider ethical principles in designing your research study and incorporate these throughout. In order to be successful in gaining ethical approval, the researcher must consider the following general ethical principles.

Beneficence – This is the principle that research should be aimed at ‘doing good’ and be of benefit to participants. Research may not be of obvious benefit to the participants, but could be of benefit to society/health in general or in the future. Participants’ wellbeing should be considered and catered for.

Non-malfeasance – This principle relates to avoiding harm. The researcher should not set out to intentionally cause participants harm. Any risk of harm should be avoided/minimised as far as possible. Researchers must consider risk v benefit of research.

Equity & Justice – Participants should be treated equally and fairly.

Autonomy – Participants should be free from coercion and be able to make their own decision to participate or not, without risk of prejudice to their care.

Informed consent – Participants should be given sufficient information for them to make a decision whether or not to participate. This is usually in the form of a participant information sheet, asking questions of the researcher and receiving clear answers and also be given sufficient time to decide whether they wish to participate are important in the consent process. Generally, written consent is required. Examples of participate information sheet, consent forms and information about them is available on the HRA website.

Confidentiality – This provides for privacy of the participant. Identifying information is not revealed and is known by researchers only. Participants are usually allocated a study number for the duration of the study. Identifying information is kept separately from data.

Anonymity – Again provides protection of privacy for the participant. When reporting data relating to an individual, for example a quote, these are anonymised to protect participant identity.

Research within the NHS

Research with participants from the NHS is closely monitored with ethical approval and adherence to ethical principles essential.

The UK Framework for Health and Social Care Research (HRA 2017) currently provides guidance on the principles of good research governance for healthcare.

The Health Research Authority (HRA) now governs research within the NHS. The main aim of the HRA is to:

Promote and protect the interests of patients in health research.
Their website is a very useful source of information.

Ethics and your dissertation

You need to consider two things:

What are the ethical issues related to your proposal?
Do you need to consider ethical approval?

Ethical issues related to your proposal

Consider issues in relation to recruitment, consent, data collection, confidentiality.

Consider if your topic is sensitive and whether participants may suffer distress. If so, you would need to consider a distress policy; for example suspending interview, access to independent counselling etc.

Consider if it is possible issues related to practice, such as poor practice, bullying in the workplace may be raised. If so, you would need to consider if and how you would manage this; for example, raise with research supervisor, supervisor of midwives etc if necessary.

The ESRC have some helpful information on building ethics into your research design. See their ethics guidebook.

In terms of data management, the Data Protection Act 2018 is also relevant.The ERSC have an overview in their ethics guidebook, or see the Data Protection Act itself.

Do you need ethical approval?

All research proposals involving human participants have to be reviewed and approved by an independent research ethics committee (REC).

University of Manchester ethical approval – Yes, for all studies.

NHS (HRA) approval – check the current guidance (It does change from time to time) on the HRA website. HRA approval is obtained by completing the Integrated Research Application System (IRAS).

If participants are patients in NHS (or accessed through the NHS) then you need HRA (IRAS) approval.

If participants are staff in the NHS, then generally you do not need HRA (IRAS) approval.

Rigour
Addressing rigour in your dissertation

Rigour is embedded throughout research design. As your write your dissertation consider some of the points related to rigour.

Your study design must be appropriate to answer your research question/aim/hypothesis. i.e. is a quantitative or a qualitative approach more appropriate?
Make sure your study methods are appropriate to meet your research aim. This includes:

Sampling – If quantitative, is the sample randomised, is a sample size calculation considered, is there a pilot study planned? If qualitative, is the method suitable, e.g. purposive sampling and is the sample size reasonable for a qualitative study.
Data collection – Is this suitable to answer the question? If quantitative, are the measures appropriate? If qualitative, give justification for your choice of data collection method – are interviews, focus groups, observation etc suited to your methodology?
Analysis – Must be relevant to your methodology. If quantitative, you will be measuring and hence producing statistics. If qualitative, the analysis method needs to be suitable for the methodology; e.g. in a grounded theory study you will be using constant comparative analysis techniques.

Useful papers

The links below relate to papers you may find helpful. If you are off campus, you may need to log in via shibboleth using your university user name and password.

Reliability and validity in quantitative research

Heale R. and Twycross A. (2015). Reliability and validity in quantitative studies. Evidence Based Nursing. 0:0.

Trustworthiness and credibility in qualitative research

Noble H. and Smith J. (2015). Issues of validity and reliability in qualitative research. Evidence Based Nursing, 18(2), 34-5.

Thomas E. and Magilvy J.K. (2011). Qualitative Rigor or Research Validity in Qualitative Research. Journal for Specialists in Pediatric Nursing. 16, 151–155.

Holloway, I. & Wheeler, S. (2010). Chapter 18: Establishing Quality: Trustworthiness or Validity. In Holloway, I & Wheeler, S. Qualitative Research in Nursing and Healthcare. pp. 297-314, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Identify an area of midwifery practice which interests you and in which you wish to advance your knowledge.

This dissertation is a literature review that appraises the evidence on a midwifery related topic and concludes by making recommendations for clinical practice, policy, or education, and further research. This task is highly relevant to your future practice. You will be required to perform literature reviews once qualified, both as part of your continued professional development and to evaluate and develop services.

This piece of work builds on and applies learning from previous parts of the research pathway, progressing from: ‘Midwifery Knowledge & Research’ (level 4, year 1) and ‘Evidence Based Midwifery Practice’ (level 5, year 2) where you learnt how to pose a research question, and to identify and appraise evidence. Now you are going to apply those skills to identify all of the relevant evidence on a topic, rather than a single study, critically appraise that evidence and then synthesise the findings to make recommendations.

The unit has been designed to be delivered mainly online using a combination of lectures, workshops, drop-in sessions, supervision and independent study. It stretches over semesters 1 and 2. Dissertation study days are timetabled, with learning which will cover different aspects of the dissertation process, opportunities for supervision, formative assessment and feedback, and time for independent study. These dates are intended to help you keep on track. The learning material is available at any time so that you can work in your own time.

Course Unit Aims and Outcomes
Aims:
To provide students with the opportunity to review literature relating to an area of their choice.
To further develop critical review skills by synthesising evidence and apply it to practice.

On completion of this course unit, successful students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding:
A1. Demonstrate a critical awareness of the role of research in clinical practice and of the midwife in its development and dissemination.
A2. Devise and sustain arguments in a structured literature review on a self-selected topic relevant to their area of clinical practice. .
A3. Accurately apply knowledge of research to propose a relevant avenue of further investigation, based on the findings of the literature review.

Intellectual skills:
B1. Demonstrate critical thinking and analysis skills via the production of a research-based dissertation.
B2. Critically interprets and evaluates research evidence and its application to clinical practice as an integral part of the research-based dissertation.

Practical skills:
C1. Apply research evidence in a critical and evaluative way and relate this to clinical practice.

Transferable skills and personal qualities:
D1. Use information technology, such as electronic library databases and bibliographic software systems, information storage and retrieval strategies and demonstrate these in the form of a search strategy in the dissertation.
D2. Learn independently and utilise research and critical appraisal skills through supervision and in clinical practice.
D3. Locate, review and critically evaluate research findings relevant to clinical practice.
D4. Critically evaluate the implementation of evidence-based practice within clinical practice.

Guidelines for your dissertation
The objectives of this assignment are for you to demonstrate that you can:
Identify an area of midwifery practice which interests you and in which you wish to advance your knowledge.
Devise a research question
Plan and undertake a systematic search of the literature.
Describe and summarise the evidence on your topic
Critically appraise the quality of the evidence
Interpret and synthesise the evidence to apply to clinical practice
Make recommendations for further research which arises from your review