Press Release Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 5

Press Release - Essay Example Recognizing that fans are interested in more than just sports commentary, Fanzplanet (or Terry Davenport) provides an unparalleled forum for fan interaction. While traditional sports news sites only focus on major news elements, this new social network recognizes that the fan experience expands well beyond what happens between the start and end of the game. Within this spectrum of understanding there are a variety of specific elements that are implemented. As noted, the site implements social media and fan interaction as primary modes of operation. Curious about the atmosphere outside the Super Bowl or World Series? Fanzplanet allows fans to post tailgate, at-game, and home videos that record their game experiences. Fans can login and see actual videos of outside game events, then tune in on television and catch the game. There will even be Fan-Buzz cameras that capture exclusive interviews with fans at the game. In addition to video posting this site allows participants to blog and connect as part of a sports community. Traditional sporting news sites have largely operated to disseminate news, with commentary only as a second-thought. This site brings fan commentary and interaction to the foreground, as in-game blogging occurs allowing fans to directly interact and comment with each other on in-game occurrences. Fans can then add each other to communicate and debate over future games. This increased interactivity is not only informative, it allows fans to participate in the game in a way that brings the sports bar experience to their computer console. Ultimately, this site will be an exciting contribution to the sports and social networking landscape. For the casual and passionate fan, this site offers an unparalleled experience for all sporting experiences. Don’t miss out! Fans can also follow updates on twitter at http://twitter.com/fanzplanetfans and via their Facebook fans page at http://bit.ly/93KsFj. Members of Fanzplanet

Clarity System Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Clarity System - Essay Example The clarity works in a very interesting way; it generates quotations, verifies, compute all the orders, delivery notes, invoices on the PDF, word and even Excel formats. Quotations are normally worked out at jaw-dropping speed using powerful computation wizards which is compatible to almost all business sectors. Faraday & Howard (2003) The function of the Excel spreadsheet in the systems clarity space is a hotly mooted debate. Undeniably the unfettered use of spreadsheets in a financial setting creates significant risks. The spreadsheet constitutes an infinite flexibility which is strength as good a weakness. Altered changes and calculation errors that are not authentic can easily undermine the integrity of a spreadsheet budget and the entire consolidated process. The harnessing of bigger characteristics of Excel enhances organisations to leverage the high investment that is already made in the spreadsheet bound processes. Gerald A.M (2006) Clarity advances the precepts by deploying the look and feel of excel. The excel/web interface enhances the acceleration and incorporation of clarity system which reduces training costs because the templates and reports can look like any other spreadsheet. It simplifies deployment of the application since users can access the system via a browser which is already on their desktop. The advantage of using web/excel as the basic user interface is that it's a universal language that has been integrated and used in most organisations. Gerald A.M (2006) Single Centralised Data Model The CPM programs are normally defined as closed loop process, where determining functionality from strategic objectives and long term plans are integrated operational budgets that are monitored, evaluated and reported against absolute results. For a dynamic environment like that one for a construction company, it is advisable that information is shared across the board by the most crucial functionalities and procedures so that there is no replication of data and integrity of information is guaranteed. The structural information such as cost centre account or product group should be consistent whenever observed in the CPM functional suite. However, clarity system supports this capability through a single centralized data model. Gregory Wilberforce (2005) This is in marked contrast to other suppliers that frequently have to 'stage' metadata in complex systems architectures in order to establish consistency across the CPM solution. Inefficiencies such as these impose unwelcome complexity and inevitably invite higher costs of maintenance. Unified Solution Clarity system enhances multi-user functions; many users can integrate with the system through a web based interface, whereas all CPM applications can be accessed through easy-to-use menu system. The modules and templates are also controlled and relayed to the central system. The clarity system offers solutions that address all Corporate Performance Management applications. Single instances of clarity is normally used for budgeting, planning, forecasting, reporting, score carding, consolidations, profitability analysis, sales analysis among many more functions. Open Architecture Clarity systems supports online analytical processing (OLAP) and in conjunction with relational databases like Essbase and Oracle clarity leverages the investments that users have already

Political System in the UK

Political System in the UK United Kingdom has a unique parliamentary democracy which has been shaped by the country’s rich history which has created a political system that has had a fundamental continuity as its mainstay. Most political systems have been born out of revolutions and strife, but the United Kingdom has not experienced any invasion or revolution for over a thousand years (Barrington, 2012, p. 170). The 1642-1651 English Civil War, could be said to be the British revolution although its political consequence, the abolition of the monarchy lasted for a short period of eleven years however, the restored monarchy has lasted for over three hundred years, although it has undergone some considerable changes to date (Barrington, 2012, p. 171). Thus, the lack of revolutions, such as the French or the American revolutions means that the political development in Great Britain evolved gradually albeit in a different manner from the other world major democracies (Pryor, 2007, p. 79). One significant di fference is that the United Kingdom is the one of three countries in the world without a written constitution, the other two being New Zealand and the State of Israel. The political system is a mixture of monarchy, lords, and commoners making it a very complicated system which may not always be democratic. However, much as change has been gradual, it has been largely pragmatic and based on consensus (Barrington 2012, p. 173). As a nation, United Kingdom has been involved in a quiet struggle to shift political power from the powerful monarchy, which claims that it’s power is derived from God to a national parliamentary system that is increasingly representative of the common people and accountable to ordinary people (Pryor, 2007, p. 81). This struggle has seen the achievement of considerable milestones towards full democracy with the monarchy being reduced to mere ceremonial roles in the political arrangement of the nation. The first Model Parliament was constituted in 1295 by King Edward the First, when he convened the first representative assembly (Ingle, 2008, p. 5) It can be observed that, unlike the other absolute monarchs in Europe, the King of England needed the approval of Parliament to institute taxation to the subjects, which literary means that the ability to raise funds was central to exercise of power (Ingle, 2008, p. 6). In 1341, the British political system achieved another milestone with the establishment of the bicameral Parliament (Barrington, 2012, p. 174). What this meant was that the parliament was to be made of two chambers, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. the Bills of Rights, which was enacted In 1689, laid down the limits of the power exercised by the monarchy and gave guidelines on the rights of parliament and rules governing freedom of speech in Parliament, called for regular Parliamentary elections, and importantly, the right to petition the Crown without victimisation (Barrington, 2012, p. 176). The UKs political system is headed by the monarch albeit in a ceremonial manner however, the monarch exercises power through the appointment of a member of Parliament, ordinarily, the leader of the party with most seats in the House of Commons to form the government (Pryor, 2007, p. 83). The monarch, albeit a ceremonial head of state, exercises subtle influences on the legislature through a provision in the constitution that requires senior members of the royal family to be consulted about legislation that could affect their private interests and accorded the opportunity to have a say on the amendment of such legislation(Ingle, 2008, p. 10). The Monarch could be seen effective in terms of advice for successive governments though, this can be debated. One could say that, in contrast the monarchy is a relic of bygone society and that the most poignant role they play is exemplifying a class system. It’s effectiveness as a political branch is subjective. It’s historic value has great significance with operations such as the ceremonial roles mentioned; It gives us our unique identity as a sovereign state. If you believe in the ideals of Monarchy, ‘yes’ It provides continuity and plays a vital role in our constitution. If you don’t believe in it’s ideals, ‘no’ it’s simply an ineffective, overcomplicated relic and should be removed to simplify our political system. Like in most democracies, the United Kingdom state is made up of the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary (Pryor, 2007, p. 85). The separation of power, however, is not a clear as it would be expected in a democratic state, such as the United State of America, whose constitution demands a clear separation of power, for example the president cannot be a member of congress, and cabinet ministers cannot be appointed from elected members of Parliament (Barrington, 2012, p. 178). In the United Kingdom, all ministers are drawn from the legislature, whilst some senior judges sit in the upper house (House of Lords) of the Parliament, and the head of the judiciary is a minister. The British Parliament is housed at the Palace of Westminster; hence, it is commonly referred to as Westminster. This a bicameral parliament, meaning it is composed of two chambers, the upper house, commonly referred to as the house of lords, and the lower house, or the house of commons (Ingle, 2008, p. 14). Most parliamentary authority rest with the Lower Chamber or the House of Commons, which is lead by a speaker, however, unlike many democracies, this position is non-political and political parties avoid contesting in the constituency held by the speaker (Barrington, 2012, p. 179). This means that the speaker is a politician since he represents a constituency in the House of Commons, but cannot play politics while he leads the House of Commons (Stater, 2004, p. 241). This obviously sounds very complicated, but that’s the way things are, and it works perfectly within the United Kingdom political system. Another deviation from most modern democracies, the United Kingdom parli ament, does not operate with a fixed parliamentary term, meaning the general elections are called when the Prime Minister called for it. The Prime Minister does not have a term limit; rather, he can run for re-election so long as he has the support of his party (Barrington, 2012, p. 183). The Prime Minister, who is normally chosen by the head of state, in the case of United Kingdom the head of state is the monarch, from among the elected members of the legislature, is the chief member of the cabinet and as such, the head of the government (Stater, 2004, p. 242). The Prime Minister is normally the leader of the party which controls the house of common. Historically, the Prime Minister office evolved from the growing assertive power of Parliament in the seventeenth century and as the power of the Prime Minister grew, that of the monarch declined (Barrington, 2012, p. 187). It is the practice within the British parliament that the Prime minister appears before the House of Commons to respond to questions from the members of Parliament as part of his accountability to the members of Parliament and by extension to the electorate. In a presidential system, such a practice only happens at the pleasure of the President since he is not directly responsible to parliament on acc ount of having been elected directly by the voters (Stater 2004, p. 243). This is an example on the differences between a parliamentary and presidential system of government. There are many ways in which parliament holds the executive to account. One of the ways is through parliamentary select communities. These are comprised of 11 MP’s and are a group that can investigate any issue they give credence to. They usually investigate matters of public interest and can seek to resolve issues in any department directly linked or has ties with government. Parliamentary select committees could enter into party politics disrupting any proper investigations into conduct of government. It’s also could be seen as difficult to get a honest, coherent and straight answers from people they interview. Furthermore, Liaison Committees which are group of chairmen from all the select committees. The committee will meet with the Prime Minster twice a year and ask questions on pressing issues. This ensures that the Prime Minster, part of the executive, is held to account. These features help keep order within the structure of government and ensure nothings gets overlooked. There may be some flaws in the level of scrutiny, but the whole system doesnt work to appease or manipulate our democracy but ensures some credibility. An Idea to improve could be if a larger, independent and solely dedicated force could scrutinise the executive. The House of Lords is the upper chamber but with little authority, with its main duties being to revise legislation and watch over the government. It is characteristically British and has no parallel in the world. The membership is not fixed and sometime they can be as many as eight hundred active members (Turpin Tomkins, 2011, p. 57). Historically, the House of Lords was composed of the hereditary peers, who essentially were drawn from the aristocracy. Membership to the House of Lords is by nomination, unlike the membership of the House of Commons, which is by election, originally done by the monarch, but in modern times this is done by the Prime Minister (Stater, 2004, p. 244). Once an aristocrat is appointed to the House of Lords it became an entitlement to that family and the membership was passed from one generation to the other, a practice that goes against the principles of democracy (Turpin Tomkins, 2011, p. 58). The Labour Government has, however, abolished these rights he reditary peers to sit in the House of Commons (Morrison, 2013, p. 134). This left what is referred to as life peers, who are members appointed by the monarch on the advice of the government of the day, however, unlike the hereditary peers, they can sit in the House of Lords for life but cannot bequeath the same to progeny (Stater, 2004, p. 246). Most of the life peers are drawn from retired senior politicians, distinguished achievers in various fields such as education and health, and Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England (Turpin Tomkins, 2011, p. 60). The House of Lords is being subjected to massive reforms with a prospect of enacting legislation to have membership of the House of Lords being through election. Many people disagree with a system of hereditary peer-ship and do not think that hereditary peers have any right to a say in the running of the country, feeling they are appointed by blood rather than achievement. Moreover, the fact they are appointed and not elec ted by the public is another aspect of criticism for the House of Lords. The British voting systems or electoral systems are the elective methods through which representatives for the various parliamentary and municipal are elected to office. The electoral system basically determines the rules that govern the election exercise both at the party and national level (Morrison, 2013, p. 134). The First–Past-The-Post (FPTP) voting system is used for the election of Members of Parliament and for local elections in Wales and England. Under this system, the country or the local authority is divided into small voting regions such as constituencies for members of parliament and wards for local authority (Cabinet Office, 2013, par. 4) The voters are issued with a ballot paper with the names of the candidates at the voting centre and they just put a cross adjacent to their preferred candidate and deposit the market ballot in the ballot box (Morrison, 2013, p. 135).. The ballots are tallied and the candidate with the highest votes is declared as duly elected to represent the ward or constituency. Each constituency has one vote in parliament and the party that achieves the number of seats for a majority wins (Cabinet Office, 2013, par. 8). The advantage of FPTP voting system is that it is an easy system to administer and ensures that to a large degree that one party wins the majority in parliament avoiding coalition’s governments (Turpin Tomkins, 2011, p. 65). The system enhances the production of a two party system which in turn produces one party government which does not have to rely on the coalition partners to pass registration (Catterall, Kaiser Walton-Jordan 2000, p. 45). It also enhances the linkage between the representative and the constituents consequently, giving a better geographical accountability and collaboration. FPTP is a straight forward system allowing for faster voting and quick tallying of votes which helps in giving faster declaration of winners (Catterall, Kaiser Walton-Jordan, 2000, p. 46). The disadvantages of the FPTP system are that it is disproportionate to the actual share of votes won, allowing for a party to get a large percentage of votes cast but not win majority seats in parliament. The system also makes it impossible for small parties to win seats in parliament (Smith, 2010, p. 46). The system enhances the production of a two party system which in turn produces one party government which does not have to rely on coalition partners to pass registration. The system encourages the setting aside of marginal and safe seats, with safe seats being less competitive than marginal seats since they are guaranteed (Ruhnau, 2013, p. 8). Voter turn out for safe seats is normally low reducing the overall voter turn-out tally. The system has been accused of restricting voter’s choices since parties are coalitions of different interest groups and viewpoints. The voters with differing views from the elected candidate do not have a way of expressing those sentiments. The system rewards the popular parties and not the candidates (Turpin Tomkins, 2011, p. 65). Much as the FPTP system is favoured in Britain because it reduces electoral competition to two parties, the 2010 election did not produce a winner with majority votes, necessitated the formation of a coalition government, the first since 1930s (Ruhnau, 2013, p. 9). This occurrence has reignited the debate on electoral reform with the coalition government mooting the idea of holding a referendum on whether Britain should replace the FPTP electoral system with the Alternative Vote system (Cabinet Office, 2013, par. 9). Those who support the FPTP system argue that the general purpose of holding elections is to get a crop of leaders who represent the views of the majority of the citizenry which supposedly are reflected by the popularity of the winning party. They point out that when people are unhappy with a government, they replace it with the other party who may have gained popularity at the expense of the government in power policies (Ruhnau, 2013, p. 9). However, such an arrangement only gives the party in power enough strength to legislate their favoured policies ignoring good ideas and policies from a representative from the opposing party. Much as the argument for proportionate representation as found in the FPTP system is desirable and at face value seem to represent the will of the majority, it, however, denies the citizens independent representation by individuals who can effectively and actively put the government to account for its actions (Ruhnau, 2013, p. 10). This system only manages to recycle the two competing parties by removing one party from power because they are unhappy with it and replacing it with the opposing party, not because they have better governance policies but purely on the demerit of the incumbent (Ruhnau, 2013, p. 10). This scenario has seen the clamour for changes to the FPTP electoral system and replaces it with Alternate Vote system. The AV system is a complicated voting system that calls for voters to rank the candidates with their preferred candidate being ranked first and so on. Candidates are perceived to be elected if they garner more than half of the preference votes cast (Ruhnau, 2 013, p. 12). If such on outcome does not happen, the candidate with least votes is dropped and their votes tallied again to the next marked preference. The tallying process continues till one candidates get the requisite fifty percent of preference votes, and that would be the candidate the AV system declares the winner and duly elected representative of the given constituency. The discussion on the changes to the election system was put to a referendum in 2011 where the United Kingdom citizens were asked whether the electoral system should be changed from First Past the Post with Alternative Voting system, the referendum returned a resounding no vote against the Alternative Voting system. References Barrington, L 2012, Comparative Politics: Structures and Choices, Boston, Cengage Learning. Cabinet Office, 2013, Reforming the constitution and political system https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/reforming-the-constitution-and-political-system Catterall, P, Kaiser, W Walton-Jordan, U 2000, Reforming the Constitution: Debates in Twentieth-century Britain, Oxford, Psychology Press. Hockman, S Bogdanor, V n.d., Towards a codified Constitution. http://www.6pumpcourt.co.uk/files/articles/Towards a codified constitution[1].pdf Ingle, S 2008, The British Party System: An introduction, Routledge. Morrison, J 2013, Essential Public Affairs for Journalists, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Pryor, J 2007 Unwritten constitutions? European Journal of English Studies, Vol. 11 no. 1, pp.79-92 Ruhnau, S 2013, The British Electoral System A Democratic One? Munich, GRIN Verlag. Smith, R 2010, The American Anomaly: U.S. Politics and Government in Comparative Perspective, London, Taylor Francis. Stater, V 2004, The House of Commons 1690-1715, Seventeenth Century News, Vol. 62 nos. 2-3, pp. 241-246, Turpin, C Tomkins, A 2011, British Government and the Constitution: Text and Materials, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Service Learning Helped My Career Decision :: Community Service, Volunteer Work

My community service experience was great! I learned many new things that I can use not only in the workplace but also in life. The people I had the opportunity to work with were very generous with their time and talents. They helped me to gain insight into what I want to do with my life. During high school, I was indecisive on what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to work either as a firefighter or an engineer. I performed my community service at the City Utilities Company. I worked with people who were water engineers and they gave me great advice on becoming an engineer. I was told that there were many different types of engineers. I didn’t even know which type of engineer I wanted to be. Then I told him that I was thinking about being a firefighter as well. That’s when I learned his son was a firefighter and loved being one. When I heard about how his son loved the job, I knew then that’s what I wanted to do. I was their secretary for the week from 8am to 5pm. I had to pick up the phone and take messages when they were out of the office, I had to organize some of their paperwork, and talk to the people who walked in looking for information of for one of the other workers. I had learned the responsibility of being on time and following directions. This experience helped me be more comfortable around people I didn’t know and able to interact with them. That came in handy in my job now, I work at American Eagle and I have to interact with people every day but I’m already comfortable doing so. It helped me in life because I’ve been able to meet new people around the college because I’m comfortable talking to complete strangers. The chance I had to work with these people was amazing. I always had the feeling of me being welcome there. In the time I was there I received many gifts from them but not for volunteering for them but because I was a friend. They let me take home leftover candy and popcorn home to my family, even though my mom and sister never knew because I ate it before I got home.

Peter Abelard

Peter Abelard was born in Pallet, France on April 21st 1079. His father was in a military career but Peter followed the academic path studying dialectic. Later in his teens he went to school in Paris called Notre-Dame de Paris, William of Champeaux taught him. After being taught for a while Peter began to question William and argue against him. It was William’s school where Abelard’s application of logic all began. At the young age of only twenty-two he set up his first school in Melun, he later moved his school to Corbeil, which was near Paris, for more direct competition. Soon after he moved his school his health suffered from over working. After his return he found William lecturing at a monastic retreat outside the city, and there they once again became rivals. Abelard was again victorious, and now stood supreme to William. Abelard later set up a school on the heights of Montagne Sainte-Genevieve which over looked Notre-Dame. From his successes in dialect he next turned to theology and attended some lectures of Anselm at Laon. His triumph was complete; the pupil was able to give lectures, without previous training or special study, which were acknowledged superior to those of the master. Abelard was now at the height of his fame. He stepped into the chair at Notre-Dame, being also nominated canon, about the year 1115. After this crowds of thousands of students surrounded Abelard. During all this fame he encountered romance. Living with the precincts of Notre-Dame under the care of her uncle, Fulbert, he met a girl named Heloise. Abelard soon fell in love with her. He became a tutor to this girl and he used his power for the purpose of seduction. Soon everyone seemed to know about this romance except for Fulbert and as soon as he found out they were separated. They now could only meet in secret. She soon became pregnant and at this time Abelard took her home to Brittney where she gave birth to a baby boy. Abelard proposed a secret marriage so that he did not mar his prospects of advancement in the church. Heloise opposed this idea but eventually gave in to pressure. Fulbert did not keep the secret of marriage and spread the word despite his promise to Abelard to not say anything. Fulbert then became physically and verbally abusive towards. Abelard removed her secretly from him house and took her to seek refuge in the convent of Argenteuil. Immediately Fulbert, believing that Abelard had taken her away to be rid of her plotted revenge. That night he and some others broke into Abelard’s chamber and castrated him! The priesthood and ecclesiastical office were canonically closed to him. Heloise consummated her work of self-sacrifice and became a nun. This how ever only affected his work temporarily and. After he gradually turned again to studying he reopened his school in the priory of Maisonceile. His work was effected, but only for the good, Abelard stated in the Historia, that â€Å"the hand of the lord had touched me for the express purpose of freeing me from the temptations of the flesh and the distractions of the world so that I could devote myself to learning and there by prove myself a true photosphere not of the world but of god. † He soon published all of his theological lectures and that was when his advisories discovered his rationalistic interpretation of the Trinitarian dogma. This upset many people and he was forced to burn the book and he was also held captive in the convent of St.  Medard at Soissons. He thought that this would be the worst experience that he would ever have to go through. One of the things that he did enjoy doing at convent was irritating the monks. He soon decided that life in the monastery was unbearable so he was able to go and live in a desert place until it was time for his persecution. He built himself a small cabin and he turned into a hermit. Soon after he moved to the desert students from Paris began to flock to him and he began teaching again. Fearing prosecution yet another persecution for teaching when he was not to be he found another refuge far off shore of lower Brittney. There among other thing he wrote his famous Historia Calamitatum. The pope lifted his sentence and he spent the remaining eighteen months of his life at Cluny, a sister-house of St. Marcel at Chalon, where he rested during his last sickness. The most important thing to always remember Abelard is his scholastic manner of philosphisizing. Even though he got into trouble with the church and society, still had a great impact on the medieval times and changed many lives.

Datastream User Guide

INFOSTREAM MAY/JUNE 2008 IN THIS ISSUE GROWTH IN US CONTENT Negotiate the world’s â€Å"info-noise† with Datastream’s expansive and reliable US-focused content. NEW VALUATION RATIOS RELEASED 14 new Datastream valuation ratios have been released, giving you a detailed overview of markets and sectors as well as enabling you to compare company to industry ratios.CONTENTS FEATURES Introducing Intelligent Information from Thomson Reuters Regional Focus – Growth in US Content PRODUCT ENHANCEMENT Functions, Units and Country Datatype Enhancements New Interface for Datastream Custom User-Created Indices in Development Coming Soon – Interactive Charting 1. Datastream Extranet Samples CONTENT ENHANCEMENT Equities and Equity Indices Update †¢ Global Update †¢ USA Update †¢ Middle East Update †¢ Asia Update I/B/E/S Global Aggregates Content Enhancement – Release of Additional Monthly History for Five Asian Indices Datastream Delivers Sought-after Commodity Information from Platts Metals Expansion Coverage Economics Round-up †¢ New Series †¢ Revisions and Methodology Changes †¢ Key Indicator Changes †¢ Interest Rates New Valuation Ratios Released in March Company Additions to Worldscope CONTRIBUTORS 3 4 12 14 16 20 20 23 25 25 27 28 29 31 31 34 35 35 36 39 41 FEATURES INTRODUCING INTELLIGENT INFORMATION FROM THOMSON REUTERS THOMSON DATASTREAM IS NOW PART OF THOMSON REUTERS. With operations in 93 countries, a market capitalisation in excess of $30 billion and 50,000 employees, Thomson Reuters has the resources and experience to serve our customers in the financial, media, legal, tax and accounting, scientific and healthcare markets.We hope you will see many positive changes from Thomson Reuters, starting with our new brand. One thing we do not intend to change, however, is our commitment to speed, accuracy, independence and freedom from bias, and our commitment to our customers, employees, shar eholders and other stakeholders. We aim to deliver on our promise to bring you intelligent information that provides knowledge to act. REGIONAL FOCUS – GROWTH IN US CONTENT AMERICA’S DATA OBESITY PROBLEM: SOLUTION – GO ON A DATASTREAM DIETNegotiate the world’s â€Å"info-noise† with Thomson Datastream’s expansive and reliable US-focused content. The US investment management industry is estimated to be worth over $30 trillion*. To support this financial leviathan, there is data in abundance available through a host of sources, including the Internet and any number of financial solutions, reports and delivery vehicles, so much so that the result for the end-user is a cacophony of â€Å"infonoise†.The author Neal Stephenson wrote that, â€Å"All information looks like noise until you break the code. † With Thomson Datastream, the US asset management industry has the ultimate code breaker. A modern-day Enigma machine. Thomson Datas tream, although international in its scope, allows unparalleled access to a landscape of historically deep, cross-asset and US-focused data, which is being continually expanded to address client needs and market developments.Sourced from such trusted third-party suppliers as Frank Russell, The Conference Board, MSCI and The University of Michigan Consumer Surveys, to name but a few, this US-orientated data can be placed alongside Thomson Datastream’s robust time series content (100 million series, including exclusive proprietary content) to better understand the performance of the US markets and construct investment strategies accordingly.INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008  Current market conditions are forcing the US investment community to work harder to â€Å"crack the code† and generate alpha. Thomson Datastream is the â€Å"codec† that allows them to achieve this, with the continual addition of North American-focused content. Recent addition s in Q1 2008 include Platts commodity pricing (see page 29) and increased coverage of US Corporate and Sovereign bonds.The Platts database is now available as a pass-through content set, and this market-leading data provides a vital insight for commodity-oriented investors in the USA, giving granular detail on the energy markets, allowing analysts of the energy sector, risk managers, commodity traders, asset managers and anyone wishing to diversify into commodities, the ability to view this valuable data, overlay the information against other factors and manipulate it within Thomson Datastream’s powerful charting and analytical capabilities. Furthermore, the recent addition of 14,000 US bonds significantly increasesUS fixed-income coverage to 43,000 securities for Government, Agency and Corporate bond issues. Within the economic sphere, Thomson Datastream allows access to crucial US-oriented sources to enable the investment management industry to analyse macro factors. For ex ample, US House prices, always a â€Å"hot topic†, are under even more scrutiny when placed within the current subprime context and wider economic conditions. Sources including the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the Mortgage Bankers Association and the S&P Case-Shiller indicators all give greater visibility into US economic health and direction.The chart below uses Shiller state-level data and compares house sales by major US cities. We can see that only in Charlotte, North Carolina, have house sales remained positive year on year, in 2007 albeit at a low 1. 75% level. The continuing crisis, and in particular the example of Bear Stearns, has highlighted the importance of having comprehensive cross-asset coverage available to the asset manager, with credit default swaps often cited. The CDS market is worth approximately $47 trillion and is demanding constant attention. Thomson Datastream carries a range of US-oriented CDS content, including aluable benchmarks for the USA such as the CDX. This index comprises the most liquid CDS contracts of US-based companies and acts as an indicator of the credit markets. The chart below shows clear negative correlation between the CDX index (North American swaps for investment-grade bonds) and the S&P Composite. INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008  These, and other CDX indices, measure debt-related derivatives, such as high-yield swaps, and enable US-focused asset managers to hedge their entire portfolios rather than trade each individual CDS per bond issue.Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once had Sherlock Holmes remark that, â€Å"It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. † Recently launched proprietary global CDS sector indices and the US-orientated suite, exclusive to Thomson Datastream, allow for greater tactical asset allocations across a portfolio, since the CDS market often captures market information faster than the equity markets. On the inclusion of this content, one Direc tor of Research at a US asset management firm commented, â€Å"The CDS indices are a great innovation. Can you provide us with the full global range? No-one else has this data. † Elementary my dear financial markets!The following example compares the US CDS banking sector against two US interest rate futures indicators. This analysis illustrates that the movement in the US Banking CDS sector anticipated the credit crisis by a little under two weeks, and shows the strong correlations (nine and ten-day lag against the sector respectively) that the futures have, compared to the sector. INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008  Other recently added proprietary Thomson Datastream content that lends itself to greater investigation and analysis of the US markets is the M&A series constructed from Thomson data.This content, overlaid against the CDS indices, can help give a clearer indication of the overall health of the M&A activity in the USA. With the credit crisis in Aug ust 2007, the number of completed deals that followed in September dropped and the spread in the CDX index correspondingly fell, as traders felt the deal market drying up. That relationship has broken down during the first quarter of 2008, which may be due to other economic factors. INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008  Thomson Datastream’s US-focused content is continually expanding.Across all asset classes, data is being added to ensure that the solution fits the high demands of the North American market, be it through the addition of macroeconomic indicators from such sources as S&P Case-Shiller, or through the display and access of quarterly fundamentals. And this investment is ongoing with soon-to-beadded US option coverage for the USA (S&P 500 and the Nasdaq) and Canada. Access to timely, comprehensive and accurate data is ever more important in a world where decisions have to be made fast.Thomson Datastream’s deep US coverage, across multiple asset classes, allows the US financial industry to cut through the â€Å"infonoise†, access vital must-have information and manipulate it with flexible analytical tools. In these current uncertain times, Thomson Datastream’s blend of reliable, multiple-asset, US content enables investors to make better, more-informed decisions and help avoid the pitfalls best summed up by an old Chinese proverb, which states, â€Å"To guess is cheap. To guess wrongly is expensive. † *Thomson Sharewatch. Based on the AUM from more than 4,000 US companies. INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008 THOMSON REUTERS 2008  PRODUCT ENHANCEMENT FUNCTIONS, UNITS AND COUNTRY DATATYPE ENHANCEMENTS The padding (PAD) function has been enhanced to enable values for missing intermediate data points to be derived via linear interpolation, so any missing (N/A) values within the time series will be calculated by linearly interpolating between the actual data values on either side. The format to use linear interpolatio n is PAD#(Expression, I). Example: To display the FTSE100 price high (PH) from December 2007 to January 2008 – there are N/A values for Christmas and New Year when the market is closed.Using the existing PAD function (without the I parameter) the N/A values are replaced by carrying forward the last actual value for the previous period. Whereas using the PAD function with the I parameter (last column below), the N/A values are replaced by values calculated by interpolating between the data either side, thereby producing a more uniform series. Code 20/12/2007 21/12/2007 24/12/2007 25/12/2007 26/12/2007 27/12/2007 28/12/2007 31/12/2007 01/01/2008 02/01/2008 03/01/2008 04/01/2008 07/01/2008 FTSE100(PH) 6367. 7 6451. 8 6485. 6 #N/A #N/A 6504. 1 6494 6480. #N/A 6512. 3 6487. 8 6534. 7 6376. 5 PAD#(FTSE100(PH)) 6367. 7 6451. 8 6485. 6 6485. 6 6485. 6 6504. 1 6494 6480. 2 6480. 2 6512. 3 6487. 8 6534. 7 6376. 5 PAD#(FTSE100(PH),I) 6367. 7 6451. 8 6485. 6 6491. 77 6497. 93 6504. 1 649 4 6480. 2 6496. 25 6512. 3 6487. 8 6534. 7 6376. 5 The continuous series (CSR) function has been enhanced, specifically for economic series, to allow quarterly series to be displayed at a monthly frequency using linear interpolated values, with a similar enhancement for annual series to be displayed at a quarterly or monthly frequency.The format to display interpolated values is CSR#(Series,M) or CSR#(Series,Q). Example: To display two quarterly series at a monthly frequency – United States GDP in real terms and the Eurozone 15 countries’ GDP in real terms. The actual quarterly data is: Code 15/05/2006 15/08/2006 15/11/2006 15/02/2007 15/05/2007 15/08/2007 15/11/2007 USGDP†¦D 11306. 7 11336. 7 11395. 5 11412. 6 11520. 1 11658. 9 11677. 1 EKGDP†¦D 1859. 84 1870. 18 1884. 62 1899. 5 1904. 74 1919. 03 1926. 38 Here, the US series is in billions of dollars at an annual rate, the Eurozone series is in billions of euros but not annualised.As the table below illustr ates, the CSR function without the M parameter simply repeats the quarterly value for each month of the quarter, but with the M parameter the data is presented in a more uniform way by interpolating between the quarterly numbers. For the United States series, the mid-quarter value of the monthly series is the same as the original quarterly series, whereas for the Eurozone series the mid-quarter value of the monthly series is one third of the original series. This is due to Eurozone GDP not being annualised, so the monthly numbers in the final column below represent the â€Å"best† estimate of actual GDP in that month.Code 15/07/2006 15/08/2006 15/09/2006 15/10/2006 15/11/2006 15/12/2006 15/01/2007 15/02/2007 15/03/2007 15/04/2007 15/05/2007 15/06/2007 15/07/2007 15/08/2007 15/09/2007 15/10/2007 15/11/2007 CSR#(USGDP†¦D) 11336. 7 11336. 7 11336. 7 11395. 5 11395. 5 11395. 5 11412. 6 11412. 6 11412. 6 11520. 1 11520. 1 11520. 1 11658. 9 11658. 9 11658. 9 11677. 1 11677. 1 CSR#(USGDP†¦D,M) CSR#(EKGDP†¦D) 11326. 7 11336. 7 11356. 3 11375. 9 11395. 5 11401. 2 11406. 9 11412. 6 11448. 4 11484. 3 11520. 1 11566. 4 11612. 6 11658. 9 11665 11671 11677. 1 1870. 18 1870. 18 1870. 18 1884. 62 1884. 2 1884. 62 1899. 5 1899. 5 1899. 5 1904. 74 1904. 74 1904. 74 1919. 03 1919. 03 1919. 03 1926. 38 1926. 38 CSR#(EKGDP†¦D,M) 622. 24 623. 39 625 626. 6 628. 21 629. 86 631. 52 633. 17 633. 75 634. 33 634. 91 636. 5 638. 09 639. 68 640. 49 641. 31 642. 13 The rules for calculating these values are as follows (these are dictated by the frequency conversion datatype (ECONV)): †¢ If ECONV = AVERAGE (example USGDP†¦D) – the actual quarterly number is placed in the mid-month of the quarter, and the intervening two months are linearly interpolated between the adjacent midquarter numbers. If ECONV = END POINT (example US64MGTLA – mortgage debt of the US financial sector), the actual quarterly number is placed in the last month of the qu arter, and then the intervening two months are linearly interpolated. †¢ If ECONV = SUM (example EKGDP†¦D), one third of the quarterly number is placed in the mid-month of each quarter, and the intervening two months are linearly interpolated between the mid-quarter numbers. INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 0 Annual series can be similarly represented at either a monthly or quarterly frequency using CSR#(series,M) or CSR#(series,Q). This new function allows a closer analysis of quarterly series on a monthly basis. For example if we correlate European Union total GDP (EXGDP†¦D) against United States GDP (USGDP†¦D), over the last ten years using a range of monthly lags, we find that the highest correlation, of 0. 99707, is with an 11-month lag of the US series.Note: These new parameters will be fully supported in a later version of the Advance interface – but can be used now either directly in AFO, or in the expression builder (where the mes sage that the parameter is unknown can be ignored). The economics magnitude (ESMAG) datatype, which displays the magnitude of the data as a number, eg 1000 for thousand, 1000000 for million, etc, has been enhanced so that it is now supported in Datastream expressions.This is useful for displaying a set of economic series data in the same units. In the example below, the total exports of visible goods for a selection of countries are displayed in millions of dollars for the year 2007 total. This is achieved by using the calendar year sum function CYS, converting all series to dollars using the tilde, multiplying by ESMAG and dividing by 1,000,000. In the analysis below the top three countries are (in order) Germany, China and United States.EXPORTS IN CURRENT PRICES TYPE AGEXPGDSA AUEXPGDSA CNEXPGDSB CHEXPGDSA FREXPGDSB BDEXPGDSB HKEXPGDSA INEXPGDSA IDEXPGDSA IREXPGDSA ITEXPGDSB JPEXPGDSB KOEXPGDSA MYEXPGDSA MXEXPGDSA NLEXPGDSA NZEXPGDSA NWEXPGDSA RSEXPGDSA SPEXPGDSA SAEXPGDSA ESEXPGD SA SDEXPGDSB SWEXPGDSA TWEXPGDSA THEXPGDSA UKEXPGDSA USEXPGDSB ESUNT US $ MILLION AUST $ MILLION CAN $ MILLION 100 MLN US$ EURO MILLIONS EURO BILLIONS HONG KONG MN$ IND RUPEE BLN US $ MILLION EURO THOUSANDS EURO MILLIONS YEN BILLION US $ MILLION RINGGIT MLN US $ MILLION EURO MILLIONS NZ$ MLN NRWGN KR MLN US $ MILLION SINGAPORE $’000 RAND MILLION EURO THOUSANDS SWEDISH KR MLN SWISS FRANC MLN TAIWAN $ MLN US $ MILLION ?MILLION US $ MILLION GEOGN ARGENTINA AUSTRALIA CANADA CHINA FRANCE GERMANY HONG KONG INDIA INDONESIA IRELAND ITALY JAPAN KOREA MALAYSIA MEXICO NETHERLANDS NEW ZEALAND NORWAY RUSSIAN FEDERATION SINGAPORE SOUTH AFRICA SPAIN SWEDEN SWITZERLAND TAIWAN THAILAND UNITED KINGDOM UNITED STATES X(ESMAG) 1000000 1000000 1000000 100000000 1000000 1000000000 1000000 1000000000 1000000 1000 1000000 1000000000 1000000 1000000 1000000 1000000 1000000 1000000 1000000 1000 1000000 1000 1000000 1000000 1000000 1000000 1000000 1000000 ESMAG EXPORTS-MILLIONS OF DOLLARS YEAR 200 CYS# (X~U$*XESMAG/1000)/1000 55933. 98 140975. 1 417035. 5 1217869 551328. 3 1330984 344676. 1 145260. 2 113953. 7 121504 491841 713111. 3 371489 176038. 3 272044 476323. 3 26946. 69 139232. 8 355176. 7 298876. 9 69661. 69 248555. 9 169700. 5 171465. 5 246181. 4 152480 436985. 3 1163314 INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 11Two new Country datatypes (GGISO and GGISN) have been introduced on Datastream: GGISO ISO Country Code GGISN ISIN Issuer Country The following table illustrates some examples: NAME ASM PACIFIC TECH C C LAND HOLDINGS CARNIVAL EADS (PAR) FRONTLINE GARMIN INVESCO MILLICOM INTL CELU SDB NWS HOLDINGS PARTNERRE PARTYGAMING QIAGEN (XET) RENAISSANCERE HDG ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISES ROYAL DUTCH SHELL A(LON) MNEM K:ASMP K:QPAK U:CCL F:EADS N:FRON @GRMN U:IVZ W:MICB K:PAPO U:PRE PRTY D:QIAX U:RNR U:RCL RDSA GEOGN HONG KONG HONG KONG UNITED STATES FRANCE NORWAY UNITED STATES UNITED STATES LUXEMBOURG HONG KONG UNITED STATES UNITED KINGDOM GERMANY UNITED STATES UNITED ST ATES NETHERLANDS GGISO HK HK US FR NO US US LU HK US GB DE US US NL GGISN KY BM PA NL BM KY BM SE BM BM GI NL BM LR GBNEW INTERFACE FOR DATASTREAM CUSTOM USER-CREATED INDICES IN DEVELOPMENT Datastream has provided facilities for creating your own custom indices for a number of years, through an integrated interface in Advance and Advance for Office (AFO) and a more comprehensive terminal interface. These indices are used extensively for evaluating different investment strategies and for use as portfolio benchmarks. We currently have in development a new Advance/AFO interface, offering a range of exciting features. These include support for an extended set of weighting methods (in addition to the current market value weighting method) – such as equal weighting, local currency, free float and using your own weights (as either a factor or a number of shares). INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 12 Index creation interface currently in developmentThe new interface w ill also facilitate the building and configuration of indices with more complex changes to their history, so in addition to supporting the importing of a set of constituents for a single point in time (either to use for the full index history, or to use going forward), these facilities will allow changes to constituents and weights at different dates to be imported directly from Excel – enabling an Excel range containing the complete history of constituent changes, reflecting either an investment strategy or specific stock selection, to be easily set up on Datastream. Equally, for indices already set up, the constituent history can be exported to Excel, and any changes made before being imported back to Datastream.We are also working on extending the set of datatypes that can be calculated for indices beyond the current list (price index, return index, market value, dividend yield and price earnings) – this will include the 15 new valuation measures that have recently been introduced for equities and Datastream equity indices. These include key measures such as sales, profits, debt, and a set of ratios such as return on equity and profit margin. Finally, in addition to supporting equities, the new interface will also support using other indices, and unit trusts as constituents. So, for example, you will be able to create a market value weighted index using thirdparty indices, Datastream indices or other custom user-created indices as their constituents. Further information will be made available via the Datastream Extranet when this new interface becomes available. INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 13 COMING SOON – INTERACTIVE CHARTING 1. 6The next release of Interactive Charting will be available soon to all users of Datastream Advance . 0 and will allow users to save their own user-created â€Å"styles† for charts. Preferences for fonts, colours, chart background and line styles can be defined, stored as a style a nd then applied to any chart in the user’s library. In addition, it will now be possible to set up custom colours and store these as part of your style. Set text style for your chart title, subtitle and legend: Set colour, thickness and style of the chart lines: Custom colours can also be defined: INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 1 Save the settings with a name of your choice: INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 1 DATASTREAM EXTRANET SAMPLESThe Datastream Samples page on the Extranet is a valuable source of content and functionality-related AFO tearsheets, that highlight the breadth and depth of content within the Datastream mainframe. Over the last few months, more models have been added, making access to existing and new content sets even easier. Some of the new sheets are detailed below, visit the Extranet site at: http://extranet. datastream. com/Free_Reports/AFO_SAMPLES. htm and look for the icon for more. Indices – Worldscope Inde x Valuations This new model displays a unique set of valuation datatypes for Datastream Global Equity Indices. Sourced from Worldscope and based on a trailing 12-month period if applicable, the datatypes include such popular items as EBITDA, Enterprise Value and CAPEX. INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 1Economics – Recession Bands Using the academic, two quarters of successive negative QOQ GDP growth, calculation of recession, this model allows users to select a country and overlay one of several pre-defined series such as Consumer Spending, Industrial Production and Unemployment rate figures. The chart period can be customised and a user-defined overlay series can also be utilised. INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 1 Options – Implied Volatility Surface Using Datastream’s extensive Options database, this model plots the implied volatility as a function of both the strike price and time to maturity. The resulting graph shows the implied volatility for all the options on a particular underlying series. INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 1Equities – Key Performance Indicators from Worldscope Effective 15 November 2007, Thomson Financial added Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the Hotel, Airline and Retail sectors. Initially for the Russell 3000 Index constituents, this model displays the current indicators for all qualifying constituents. INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 19 CONTENT ENHANCEMENT EQUITIES AND EQUITY INDICES UPDATE This month sees the release of additional valuation datatypes for the Russell indices. Changes to the way S&P constituent data is provided are effective from 1 June 2008 and customers are advised to read this carefully and take action if required. New Shariah indices are also available from S&P and FTSE.Read on for all the details. Global Update S&P Constituent Data – End-User Agreement Now Required for Access to Constituent-Level Dat a With effect from 1 June 2008, there is a change to the way constituent data for a number of S&P constituent families is provided on a number of Thomson products, such as Datastream, DDL, Datastream Advance in T1IM. From 1 June 2008, customers wishing to continue to access constituent datatypes such as constituent weights, number of shares and free-float data are required to have a direct end-user agreement with S&P. For each index family impacted by this change, a new module is available that provides access to the restricted datatypes.The names and identifiers of each security within each constituent list are not impacted by these changes and will remain unrestricted. This change is a result of S&P no longer licensing constituent-level index data for wholesale distribution through vendors to their clients. New modules created for each of the following index families impacted by this change: S&P US indices This includes the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400, S&P SmallCap 600, S&P Composite 1500, S&P 1000, S&P 900, S&P 100, S&P REIT Composite, S&P Citigroup Style and all underlying sector, industry and style indices. S&P Australia This includes the S&P/ASX 50, S&P/ASX 100, S&P/ASX 200, S&P/ASX 300 and All Ordinaries Indices and all underlying sector, industry and style indices.S&P Global 1200 This includes the S&P Global 1200, S&P Europe 350, S&P/Topix 150, S&P/TSX60, S&P Asia 50 and S&P Latin America 40 and all underlying sector and industry indices. S&P/MIB This includes the S&P/MIB index. S&P/HKEx This includes the S&P/HKEx Hong Kong indices including the S&P/HKEx Composite index. S&P/Japan This includes the S&P Topix 150 index. Restricted Constituent List Datatypes From 1 June 200, the following datatypes are available only in the new modules. The restrictions also apply to these constituent datatypes provided for S&P historical constituent lists. Please note that not all datatypes are available or valid for all the S&P index families detailed above.A more detaile d list, along with all the constituent list mnemonics, is provided on the Datastream Extranet. The names and identifiers of each security within each constituent list are not impacted by these changes and remain unrestricted. DATATYPE WTIDX PIDX NSIDX FFIDX MVIDX CFIDX AFIDX CLS1 CLS1N CLS2 CLS2N CLS3 CLS3N CLS4 CLS4N DESCRIPTION CONSTITUENT WEIGHT PRICE OF EACH CONSTITUENT IN THE INDEX NUMBER OF SHARES INCLUDED IN THE INDEX FREE-FLOAT FACTOR OF EACH CONSTITUENT IN THE INDEX MARKET VALUE OF EACH CONSTITUENT IN THE INDEX CAPPING FACTOR ADJUSTMENT FACTOR GICS SECTOR CODE GICS SECTOR NAME GICS INDUSTRY GROUP CODE GICS INDUSTRY GROUP NAME GICS INDUSTRY CODE GICS INDUSTRY NAME GICS SUB-INDUSTRY CODE GICS SUB-INDUSTRY NAMEACTION REQUIRED In order to minimise the impact of these changes, it is advisable that you review as soon as possible if you wish to continue to access the above constituent list datatypes. If you do, you should contact S&P to discuss this or complete the form in the att ached notification and send it to S&P: http://extranet. datastream. com/data/Equity%20indices/ If you wish to discuss this directly with S&P, please contact one of the following: Americas: Maureen O’Shea EMEA: John Davies Asia: Angeline Choo ANZ: Guy Maguire Japan: Uchi Seiichiro Shariah Indices maureen_o’[email  protected] com +212 438 6174 [email  protected] com +44 (0)20 7176 8456 [email  protected] com +65 6239 6318 [email  protected] com +61 292 559 822 [email  protected] com +813 4550 8568 INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 21 A number of new Shariah indices are now available on Datastream. S&P Pan-Asia Shariah index The stocks for this index are drawn from the Asian country indices in the S&P/Citigroup Global Equity Index series, excluding Australia, Japan and New Zealand. Stocks for the universe must have at least US$ 1 billion in float-adjusted market capitalisation. The number of stocks, for Shariah screening purposes, is limited to t he top 15 from each country that exceeds the US$1 billion market capitalisation threshold.Each month a universe of stocks conforming to these criteria, selected once a year on 31 March, is screened for Shariah compliance to form this index. The countries eligible for inclusion in this index are China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. S&P Global and World Property Shariah index The S&P/Citigroup Global Property index represents and measures the investable universe of publicly traded property companies from developed and emerging markets. The constituents are companies engaged in a wide range of real estate related activities, such as property management, development, rental and investment.The component REIT stocks, in particular, include property trusts that invest in physical real estate assets and other pass-through vehicles. The S&P/Citigroup World Property Index is a subset of the Global Property Index and includes companies fr om the developed markets only. Each month a universe of stocks conforming to these criteria, selected once a year on 31 March, is screened for Shariah compliance to form these indices. INDEX NAME S&P PAN-ASIA SHARIAH $ S&P PAN-ASIA SHARIAH E S&P WORLD PROPERTY SHARIAH $ S&P WORLD PROPERTY SHARIAH E S&P GLOBAL PROPERTY SHARIAH $ S&P GLOBAL PROPERTY SHARIAH E MNEMONIC SPSHPA$ SPSHPAE SPWPRS$ SPWPRSE SPGPRS$ SPGPRSEDATATYPE PI, RI, NR, MV PI, RI, NR, MV PI, RI, NR, MV PI, RI, NR, MV PI, RI, NR, MV PI, RI, NR, MV START DATE 29/12/06 29/12/06 29/12/06 29/12/06 29/12/06 29/12/06 INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 22 FTSE Shariah Japan 100 $ index FTSE extended its FTSE Shariah Global Equity index family on 3 March 2008 with the release of the FTSE Shariah Japan 100 $ index. This index represents the performance of the 100 biggest Shariah-compliant companies by full market capitalisation, that are included in FTSE Japan index. The index is calculated in USD and history is av ailable from 3 March 2008. The index mnemonic is FSJP10$. Further information can be found on: http://www. ftse. om/Indices/FTSE_Shariah_Global_Equity_Index_Series/ Downloads/FTSE_Shariah_Japan_100_USD_Valuation. pdf USA Update Russell – Additional Datatypes for Benchmark Indices Thomson Reuters has released new datatypes for the Russell Benchmark indices. The new datatypes include price to book value (BP), price to cash flow (PC), price to sales (PS), return on equity (RE) and return on assets (AR), and complement the existing coverage of price earnings ratio (PE), dividend yield (DY) and market value (MY) for the same indices. Customers who have access to the existing Russell Standard or Russell Premier pass-through modules will be able to access the new datatypes. Click on this link for more details: http://extranet. datastream. om/data/Equity%20indices/documents/Russellreleasemessagev2. doc The valuation ratios are updated at approximately 09:00 GMT on every sixth busines s day of the following month. INDEX DESCRIPTION RUSSELL TOP 50 RUSSELL TOP 200 RUSSELL TOP 200 GROWTH RUSSELL TOP 200 VALUE RUSSELL 1000 RUSSELL 1000 GROWTH RUSSELL 1000 VALUE RUSSELL 2000 RUSSELL 2000 GROWTH RUSSELL 2000 VALUE RUSSELL 2500 INDEX MNEMONIC RRUST50 RRUS200 RRUS20G RRUS20V RRUSS1L RRUS1GR RRUS1VA RRUSS2L RRUS2GR RRUS2VA RRUS250 DATATYPES PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PCBASE DATE 30/01/1998 31/01/2002 29/12/1978 31/01/2002 31/03/1986 31/01/2002 31/03/1986 31/01/2002 29/12/1978 31/01/2002 29/12/1978 31/01/2002 29/12/1978 31/01/2002 29/12/1978 31/01/2002 29/12/1978 31/01/2002 29/12/1978 31/01/2002 29/12/1978 31/01/2002 INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 23 RUSSELL 2500 GROWTH RUSSELL 2500 VALUE RUSSELL 3000 RUSSELL 3000 GROWTH RUSSELL 3000 VALUE RUSSELL 3000E RUSSELL 3000E GROWTH RUSSELL 3000E V ALUE RUSSELL SMALL CAP COMPLETENESS RUSSELL SMALL CAP COMPLETENESS GROWTH RUSSELL SMALL CAP COMPLETENESS VALUE RUSSELL MIDCAP RUSSELL MIDCAP GROWTH RUSSELL MIDCAP VALUE RUSSELL MICROCAP RUSSELL MICROCAP GROWTH RUSSELL MICROCAP VALUE RRUS25G RRUS25V RRUSS3L RRUS3GR RRUS3VA RR3000E RR30GRE RR30VAE RRS3XSD RRS3GXD RRS3VXD RRUSMID RRUSMIG RRUSMIV RRUSMIC RRUSMGR RRUSMVAPS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC PS, RE, BP, AR PC 31/03/1986 31/01/2002 31/03/1986 31/01/2002 29/12/1978 31/01/2002 30/03/1979 31/01/2002 30/03/1979 31/01/2002 30/06/2005 30/06/2005 30/06/2006 30/06/2006 30/06/2006 30/06/2006 31/12/1979 31/01/2002 31/12/1979 31/01/2002 31/12/1979 31/01/2002 29/12/1978 31/01/2002 31/03/1986 31/01/2002 31/03/1986 31/01/2002 30/06/2005 30/0 6/2005 30/06/2006 30/06/2006 30/06/2006 30/06/2006Global Property Research Two new indices from Global Property Research are now available on Datastream. History is available from 28 March 2008. INDEX NAME GPR 250 PSI CHINA GPR 250 PSI CHINA E GPR 250 PSI CHINA $ GPR 250 REIT CHINA GPR 250 REIT CHINA E GPR 250 REIT CHINA $ MNEMONIC GPR2CHL GPR2CHE GPR2CH$ GPRRCHL GPRRCHE GPRRCH$ DATATYPE PI, RI, MV, DY, NE PI, RI, MV, DY, NE PI, RI, MV, DY, NE PI, RI, MV, DY, NE PI, RI, MV, DY, NE PI, RI, MV, DY, NE INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 2 Middle East Update Jordan – Additional Equity Datatypes Thomson Reuters has released additional Jordan unadjusted price datatypes on Datastream from 18 March 2008.The additional equity datatypes are: †¢ Unadjusted price ask (UPA) †¢ Unadjusted price bid (UPB) †¢ Unadjusted price high (UPH) †¢ Unadjusted price low (UPL) †¢ Unadjusted price open (UPO) †¢ Unadjusted trade volume (UVO) The Jordan stocks currently covered on Datastream can be found in the list FJORD. The prices are updated at approximately 12:30 GMT. Asia Update Thailand – Additional Datatypes Market value (MV) is now available for all Thailand Stock Exchange indices. History is available from 25 December 2007. In addition to the MV data, other datatypes are also now available for the Thai Industry Group Indices – these are: PE, BP, DY, MV, VO and VA. History is available from 25 December 2007.Thailand Benchmark and Sector Indices INDEX NAME BANGKOK SET BANGKOK SET 50 BANGKOK SET 100 THAILAND MAI THAILAND SE AGRIBUSINESS THAILAND SE FOOD AND BEVERAGE THAILAND SE FASHION THAILAND SE HOME & OFFICE PRODUCTS THAILAND SE PERSONAL PRODUCTS & PHARMACEUTICALS THAILAND SE BANKING THAILAND SE FINANCE AND SECURITIES THAILAND SE INSURANCE THAILAND SE AUTOMOTIVE THAILAND SE INDUSTRIAL MATERIALS & MACHINERY THAILAND SE PACKAGING THAILAND SE PAPER & PRINTING MATERIALS THAILAND SE PETROCHEMICALS & CHEMICALS THAILAND SE CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS THAILAND SE PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT THAILAND SE ENERGY & UTILITIES THAILAND SE MINING THAILAND SE COMMERCE THAILAND SE HEALTH CARE SERVICES THAILAND SE MEDIA & PUBLISHING THAILAND SE PROFESSIONAL SERVICES THAILAND SE TOURISM & LEISURE THAILAND SE TRANSPORTATION & LOGISTICS THAILAND SE ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS THAILAND SE INFORMATION & COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY MNEMONIC BNGKSET BNGKS50 BNGK100 BNGKMAI BNGKAGR BNGKFDI BNGKFHN BNGKHHG BNGKPPH BNGKBNK BNGKFIN BNGKINS BNGKAUT BNGKIMM BNGKPAK BNGKPPM BNGKPET BNGKCTR BNGKPDV BNGKENG BNGKMIN BNGKCOM BNGKHCS BNGKENR BNGKPFS BNGKHOT BNGKTLO BNGKELC BNGKCMM DATATYPE MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV MV INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 2 Thailand Industry Group IndicesINDEX NAME THAILAND SE AGRO & FOOD INDUSTRY THAILAND SE CONSUMER PRODUCTS THAILAND SE FINANCIALS THAILAND SE INDUSTRIALS THAILAND SE PROPERTY & CONSTRUCTION THAILAND SE RESOURCES THAILAND SE SER VICES THAILAND SE TECHNOLOGY MNEMONIC BNGKAGF BNGKCON BNGKFNI BNGKIND BNGKPRO BNGKRES BNGKSER BNGKTEK DATATYPE PE, BP, DY, MV, VO, VA PE, BP, DY, MV, VO, VA PE, BP, DY, MV, VO, VA PE, BP, DY, MV, VO, VA PE, BP, DY, MV, VO, VA PE, BP, DY, MV, VO, VA PE, BP, DY, MV, VO, VA PE, BP, DY, MV, VO, VA INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 2 I/B/E/S GLOBAL AGGREGATES CONTENT ENHANCEMENT – RELEASE OF ADDITIONAL MONTHLY HISTORY FOR FIVE ASIAN INDICES Thomson Reuters has released additional monthly history for five major indices in Asia to I/B/E/S Global Aggregates.Previously going back only one year, monthly history for these indices now goes as far back as January 2005, with weekly history back to January 2006 – providing even more value-added content. The five series are: COUNTRY TAIWAN TAIWAN TAIWAN MALAYSIA MALAYSIA IGA INDEX NAME TAIWAN SE WEIGHTED TAIEX TSEC TAIWAN 50 TSEC TAIWAN MIDCAP 100 KUALA LUMPUR COMPOSITE INDEX (KLCI) KUALA LUMPUR SE EMAS IGA IDENTIFIER TAIEX TSEC50 TSECMID KLCI KLEMAS DATASTREAM MNEMONIC @:TAIEX @:TASEC5 @:TAMID1 @:MYKLCI @:MYEMAS This additional history was made available with the March 2008 monthly run. For further information or assistance, please contact content. [email  protected] com or your local Thomson Datastream customer service or account team. INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 2DATASTREAM DELIVERS SOUGHT-AFTER COMMODITY INFORMATION FROM PLATTS Market watchers know that commodities are now in their fifth year of a bull run, with many hitting their all-time high price over the last year or so and drawing the attention of hedge funds, investment houses and others looking to increase their portfolio weightings in this asset class. Now Thomson Datastream clients can access end-of-day commodity price assessments by way of the industry-leading Platts Dispatch product, to help them reduce risk as they make key trading decisions, value positions and analyse data. †¢ Platts, a division o f McGraw-Hill, provides industry-standard commodity price assessments that are critical elements used to settle short- and long-term OTC contracts worldwide. Renowned for their energy commodity coverage, Platts pricings help industry specialists understand commodity price trends and developments. Available on a pass-through basis, Platts Dispatch over Thomson Datastream delivers end-of-day price assessments, third-party data, and an historical database of more than 25,000 commodity time series, many with several decades of data. †¢ Platts commodities data spans: oil and shipping; petrochemicals; metals; electricity and gas; coal and emissions; data via American Petroleum Institute Statistics; and Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts’ prices. †¢ Overall, the content is available through 129 data categories, which can be chosen individually or grouped into packages, and may contain one or more of the following data attributes: high, low, bid, ask, mid-price, close and volume.Frequency of series ranges from daily, weekly, monthly or infrequently – priced when an event occurs. †¢ Clients subscribing to Platts content through Thomson Datastream will be able to use its existing functionality and integrate this content with other available leading Thomson Datastream content sets. All clients must maintain a direct agreement, which must be in place with Platts prior to the client being entitled to its data. More information on the data and how clients can obtain an agreement for it can be found on: http://extranet. datastream. com/data/Commodities/Index. htm INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 2 METALS EXPANSION COVERAGEThomson Reuters has expanded Datastream’s metal coverage with an additional 00 new time series, covering Asian metal spot prices with a distinct focus on the Chinese market and the inclusion of steel price indices and other steel-related products. Customers can now access CRU Steel price ind ices for semi-finished and finished carbon steel products, known to be the most widely used benchmarks in the world steel industry. Complementing these indices are SteelHome’s China Steel price indices. In additional to steel indices, Chinese metal prices from local steelmakers with the following characteristics are now available: †¢ Stainless steel †¢ Coke/coal †¢ Iron ore †¢ Pig iron/scrap †¢ Wire rod/rebar †¢ Medium plates †¢ CR/HR †¢ Section †¢ Ferro-alloy/non-ferrous INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 29Further expansion with a focus on Asian metal prices is now available for the following categories: †¢ Base metals †¢ Minor metals †¢ Rare earths †¢ Ferro-alloys †¢ Refractories †¢ Iron and steel Chinese Base Metals Comparison INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 30 ECONOMICS ROUND-UP New Series More than 3,000 series have recently been added to the Economics database, w ith particular emphasis on more detail in key coverage areas such as international trade. Some of the highlights are summarised below, with links given to the relevant Content Updates on the Datastream Extranet, where more information and series listings are available. Trade Detail for Turkey More than 300 commodity trade series are now available for Turkey, as sourced from the Turkish Statistical Institute.Import and export coverage is given by three different classification schemes: Broad Economic Categories, International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) and Standard International Trade Classification (SITC). Also added were trade by country series. All data is monthly, most with start dates from January 1996. (See Content Updates #2780, 2791, 2794 and 2819. ) Trade detail has also been recently added for France and Brazil. See the table below. Confidence Surveys for Indonesia Series from the Bank of Indonesia’s surveys on business and consumer expectations have b een released on Thomson Datastream. The new data includes information about business conditions during the current quarter, as well as expectations for the following quarter, by industry. Concepts covered are business activities, selling prices and usage of labour. 2772) The consumer survey is headlined with three indices – Consumer Confidence Index (CCI), Current Economic Condition Index (CECI) and the Consumer Expectation Index (CEI). Also available are price expectations of major commodities in three and six months’ time, consumption plans and appraisal of economic conditions. (2769) In the News †¢ US Housing House purchase price indices, produced by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), are now available. Data is reported for the US total and nine Census divisions on a quarterly basis. (2824) †¢ Energy in China Series detailing consumption of energy fuels and electricity by industry have been added.The statistics are annual, as repor ted by National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS). (2775) The table overleaf itemises the new data releases that have been made over the last two months. The table provides access links to the original Content Update announcements on the Research Extranet, where more information is given, including series lists – just click on the description in the first column, which is a hyperlink. Also provided are Navigator citations and links – referring to locations in Thomson Datastream Navigator, Explorer for Economics, where the relevant series are shown. INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 31 New Series by Region # Series Content Navigator Location Added Update #See Explorer for Economics> National Sources 129 6 7 18 7 16 5 15 54 40 2867 2880 2847 2837 2833 2835 2853 2879 2796 2824 Brazil > External Sector > Imports and Exports > Trade by Commodity Brazil > External Sector > International Reserves Brazil > Money and Finance > Money Supply Chile > Key Indicato rs Chile > External Sector > External Investment & Debt Chile > Government Sector > Government Surplus/Deficit Chile > External Sector > International Reserves Colombia > Industry Sector > Housing and Construction Detail United States > Money & Finance > Banking (MFIs) > FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile United States > Industry Sector > Housing & Construction Detail > OFHEO House Price Index AmericasBrazilian External Trade by Commodity Brazilian International Reserve Assets Brazilian Money Supply Components Chilean Consumer Credit and Bank Lending Chilean External Debt Chilean Government Accounts Chilean Official Reserves Colombian Housing Construction by Cities US FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile US OFHEO Purchase-Only House Price Indices Asia Chinese Energy Series Indonesian Business Survey series Indonesian Consumer Confidence Survey Indonesian Retail Sales Survey series Japanese Lease Series 73 104 83 16 15 2775 2772 2769 2774 2844 See Explorer for Economics > National Sources Chin a > Industry Sector > Other Industry detail > Energy Indonesia > Surveys & Cyclical Indexes > Business Surveys Indonesia > Surveys & Cyclical Indexes > Consumer Surveys Indonesia > Surveys & Cyclical Indexes > Retail Sales Survey Japan – Premium Service > Industry Sector > Other Industry Detail > Machinery & Equipment > Equipment Leasing & PurchasesJapanese Motor Vehicle Imports Japanese Treasury Funds Receipts & Payments Balances with the Private Sector Malaysian Bank Lending Malaysian Foreign Reserves Malaysian Manufacturing Sales Value New Zealand Manufacturing Survey series Thailand Non-Performing Loans 11 29 2763 2770 Japan – Premium Service > Industry Sector > Automobiles & Transport Detail > Vehicle Imports Japan – Premium Service > Government Sector > Treasury Funds Balance of Receipts & Payments with the Private Sector 25 6 1 48 16 2825 2797 2839 2785 2832 Malaysia > Money & Finance > Banking (MFIs) Malaysia > Money & Finance > International Reserves > Monthly series Malaysia > Industry Sector> Industrial Production > Manufacturing Production and Sales New Zealand > Industry Sector > Sales, Orders, Inventories Thailand > Money & Finance > Banking (MFIs) > Non-Performing Loans EuropeAustria Producer Price Index Austrian Labour Market Austrian Wholesale, Retail Trade and Services Bulgarian National Accounts Danish Gross Fixed Capital Formation Finnish Gross Fixed Capital Formation – Construction French External Trade Statistics by Commodity & Area Netherlands Government Sector series Netherlands Seasonally Adjusted Quarterly Industrial Production Series Portuguese Employment and Industrial Sales Turnover Portuguese Government Revenue and Expenditure Romanian Consumer Price Index Romanian Wages and Earnings Slovak National Accounts Spanish International Reserves United Kingdom Detailed Index of Production 63 23 14 315 49 6 165 2873 2802 2852 2779 2789 2877 2857 35 39 90 8 12 20 298 35 12 2812 2868 2850 2859 2818 2826 2861 2810 2790See Explorer for Economics > National Sources Austria > Prices > Producer Prices Austria > Labour Market > Employment & Hours Austria > Industry Sector > Sales, Orders, Inventories > Retail Sales and other lists Bulgaria > National Accounts > GDP by industry Denmark > National Accounts > Investment/Capital Formation various lists Finland > National Accounts > Investment/Capital Formation France > External Sector > Imports & Exports > Trade by Commodity various lists Netherlands > Government Sector Netherlands > Industry Sector > Industrial Production & Utilisation > Production Indices SA Portugal > Labour Market > Employment & Hours and Wages & Earnings Portugal > Industry Sector > Sales, Orders, Inventories Portugal > Government Sector > Government Surplus/Deficit Romania > Prices > Consumer Prices Romania > Labour Market > Wages & Earnings Slovakia > National Accounts > GDP by Expenditure Spain > External Sector > International Reserves United Kingdom > Industry Sector > Indu strial Production & Utilisation > Main Indicators > Seasonally Adjusted and Not Seasonally Adjusted INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 32 New Series by Region # Series Content Navigator Location Added Update #See Explorer for Economics > International Sources – History 230 2754 European Commission > Business and Consumer Surveys various lists Eurozone European Commission Aggregate Series for Eurozone 15 #5 – Business & Consumer Surveys ECB Aggregate Series for Eurozone 15 #6 – Prices and Labour Market ECB Aggregate Series for Eurozone 15 #7 – Retail Sales 10 2855 15 2845 European Central Bank > ECB Monthly Bulletin > Prices, Output, Demand and Labour Markets > Labour Market and HICP, Other Prices and Costs European Central Bank > ECB Monthly Bulletin > Prices, Output, Demand and Labour Markets > Output and Demand Middle East & AfricaEgyptian Foreign Direct Investment by Area Egyptian Remittances Israel Wages and Employee Posts Israeli Natio nal Accounts South Africa Energy Statistics Turkish Foreign Trade by Commodity (Broad Economic Categories) Turkish Foreign Trade by Commodity (ISIC Classification) Turkish Foreign Trade by Commodity (SITC) Turkish Foreign Trade by Country 77 152 45 2791 2794 2819 31 21 99 198 10 42 2860 2838 2764 2752 2854 2780 See Explorer for Economics > National Sources Egypt > External Sector > External Investment & Debt Egypt > Labour Market > Wages and Earnings Israel > Labour Market > Employment & Hours and Wages & Warnings Israel > National Accounts > GDP by Expenditure South Africa > Industry Sector > Other Industry Detail Turkey > External Sector > Imports & Exports > Trade by Commodity > Imports and ExportsTurkey > External Sector > Imports & Exports > Trade by Commodity > Imports and Exports Turkey > External Sector > Imports & Exports > Trade by Commodity > Imports and Exports Turkey > External Sector > Imports & Exports > Trade by Country International OECD Main Economic Indicators â⠂¬â€œ February 2008 24 2768 See Explorer for Economics > International Sources – History OECD Main Economic Indicators > Indicators for OECD Zones and Indicators for OECD NonMember Countries various lists OECD Main Economic Indicators – March 2008 8 2834 OECD Main Economic Indicators > Indicators for OECD Member Countries and Indicators for OECD Non-Member Countries various lists INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 33Revisions and Methodology Changes It has been a busy period, with revisions to US seasonally adjusted data and index rebasings in a number of markets. Other more substantive changes have been made to balance of payments and the trade-weighted exchange rate for Euroland, household interest rates for the UK, Flow of Funds and Household Economy Survey for Japan, and unemployment statistics for Denmark. The following table summarises the revisions that have taken place in the last two months. Please refer to the Content Update itself (hyperlinked from the table) for further information and mnemonics of affected series. Country Revised Data Content Update # Changes to Economic SeriesAustralia Austria Denmark Euroland Israel Italy Japan Australian Construction Work Done Revised Australian Labour Force Survey Revised Austrian Wages Rebased Danish Unemployment Methodology Changed ECB Effective Exchange Rates Redefined Eurozone Monthly Balance of Payments Changed Israeli Wages and Employment Data Revised Italian External Trade Index Rebased Japan Electronic Equipment Market Size and Demand Forecasts Changed Japan Flow of Funds Accounts Series Methodology Changed Rebased Japanese Household Economy Survey Partly Discontinued Japan Real & Nominal Effective Exchange Rates Redefined Philippines South Korea Philippine Industrial Production Indices Rebased Philippine Producer Price Indices Rebased South Korean Business Indicator Composite Indices Rebased South Korean Housing Purchase Price Index Rebased South Korean Industrial Producti on Rebased South Korean Manufacturing Production Rebased & Changed South Korean Retail Sales Rebased South Korean Service Industry Index Rebased Sweden Taiwan Thailand Turkey UK USA Swedish Retail Sales Index Rebased Taiwanese Price Indices Rebased Thai External Trade & Terms of Trade Index Rebased Turkish National Accounts Rebased UK Bank of England Household Interest Rates Changed US Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization Revised US Seasonally Adjusted Consumer Price Indices Revised US Seasonally Adjusted Existing Home Sales Revised US Seasonally Adjusted Pending Home Sales Revised US Seasonally Adjusted Producer Price Indices Revised US Seasonally Adjusted Unemployment Insurance Claims Revised US Wholesale Trade: Sales and Inventories Revised 2792 2848 2827 2842 2760 2820 2759 2858 2849 2869 2878 2846 2757 2876 2821 2805 2799 2811 2813 2809 2806 2800 2767 2828 2836 2864 2882 2762 2784 2804 2781 2871 2872 INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 3 Key Indicator Cha nges The Economics team continues to review Key Indicator selections for each market, in order to add more, ensure the best selection and bring more consistency across countries. See below for recent additions and hyperlinks to relevant Content Updates, where more information is given. Key Indicator ChangeAustria Consumer Credit Added Austria International Reserves Selection Changed Austria Producer Prices Selection Changed Chilean Consumer Credit and Bank Lending Added Israeli Employment and Wages Selection Changed Polish Producer Price Index Resourced Romanian Producer Price Index Now on Fixed Base Swedish Business Confidence Indicators Selection Changed Thai Bank Loans Series Added Mnemonics OECRDCONA OERESERVA OEPROPRCF CLCRDCONA & CLBANKLPA POPROPRCF RMPROPRCF SDCNFBUSR & SDCNFBUSQ THBNKLONA Content Update # 2822 2807 2843 2837 2766 2793 2798 2773 ISWAGES. E, ISWAGMANF & ISEMPALLG 2758 Interest Rates Repo Rates for Thailand Four bilateral repurchase rates, as released by the Ba nk of Thailand, are now available. The series are weighted average rates with 1, 7, 14 and 30-day terms.The Bilateral Repurchase Operation is conducted through appointed Bilateral Primary Dealers and helps in stimulating the private repurchase market. Repurchase transactions are used by the bank to temporarily add or drain reserves available in the banking system. Mnemonics are as follows: Description THAILAND BILATERAL REPO RATE 1 DAY THAILAND BILATERAL REPO RATE 7 DAY THAILAND BILATERAL REPO RATE 14 DAY THAILAND BILATERAL REPO RATE 30 DAY DS Mnemonic THBRP1D THBRP7D THBRP2W THBRP1M Datatype IR IR IR IR INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 3 NEW VALUATION RATIOS RELEASED IN MARCH March saw the release of 1 new valuation ratios on Thomson Datastream.These ratios are calculated on the equity level as well as the industry, sector, country and regional levels of the Datastream Indices, and allow a great number of data comparisons to highlight trends which previously woul d have needed compilation of data before use. In brief, these ratios are based on the Worldscope database items and using wherever possible the latest interim data on a 12-month trailing basis. The full methodology is described in the following link on the Extranet: http://extranet. datastream. com/data/Equities/documents/DatastreamGlobalEquityIndicesvaluationdatatypes-rulesvs4final. pdf INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 3 So what can we do with these ratios?You can compare a company to its industry, locally and regionally, as is illustrated here using Return on Equity. About Martek Biosciences Corporation Founded in 1985, the group’s principal activity is to develop, manufacture and sell naturally produced products derived from micro-algae, fungi and other microbes. The group’s products and services include speciality, nutritional oils for infant formula, nutritional supplements and food ingredients to promote mental and cardiovascular health, fluores cent markers for diagnostics, rapid miniaturised screening and gene and protein detection. Its ROE is compared here with the US Food & the World Food industries.You can also †¦make sector comparisons across different regions of the world using the regional-level aggregates Here we have compared the Capital Expenditure of the Pharmaceutical industry in various regions: Europe, USA, Far East and World. Capital expenditure for USA and Europe represents almost 90% of the capex spent in that industry worldwide, and it’s interesting to see how the drop in US relative capex has been totally mirrored by an increase in Europe’s importance in this domain. INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 3 †¦or look at a particular sector in a different light, using here the Interest coverage ratio to illustrate the Turkish Telecom Sector and its ability to repay debt Interest charge coverage, also called interest coverage ratio, is defined by EBIT divided by the inte rest expense for each period.It indicates the ability of the company (or in this case the sector) to repay its debt using the income generated by the business. Levels above 3 are considered having a strong ability to repay debt, while businesses whose ratio drops below 1. 5 (red line on the chart) are considered risky. It’s interesting to show how the sector market index started picking up once the interest coverage ratio moved above 3 towards the end of 2004. This is also when the sector was open to competition. New licences were granted to 16 suppliers of data transmission services in fixed telephony. Further steps towards liberalisation and breaking up of the monopoly were taken in 2005/06 by the sale of Turk Telekom.Vodafone repurchased Telsim, the second largest mobile phone operator. The Turkish telecommunications network continued to grow, currently ranked the 13th largest market in the world and fifth in Europe. INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 3 COM PANY ADDITIONS TO WORLDSCOPE During February and March over 00 companies were added to the Worldscope Database. These additions included 112 US Companies and a continuing expansion of coverage of Middle Eastern markets. Also, Nigeria was added to our country coverage. Worldscope’s total coverage at 8th April 2008 consisted of 56,448 companies, 36,508 of which were active companies. 10,172 of these companies are Limited data set companies (8,064 active).COUNTRY ARGENTINA AUSTRALIA AUSTRIA BAHRAIN BELGIUM BERMUDA BRAZIL CANADA CAYMAN ISLANDS CHILE CHINA COLOMBIA CZECH REPUBLIC DENMARK EGYPT ESTONIA FINLAND FRANCE GERMANY GREECE HONG KONG HUNGARY ICELAND INDIA INDONESIA IRELAND ISRAEL ITALY JAPAN JORDAN KOREA (SOUTH) KUWAIT LITHUANIA LUXEMBOURG MALAYSIA MEXICO MOROCCO NETHERLANDS TOTAL 0 FEB 200 113 2490 203 35 286 82 602 2524 28 261 1903 54 82 330 59 7 238 1657 1550 401 1168 46 19 2102 401 158 225 525 4816 30 1154 87 3 68 1208 227 26 408 COMPANIES ADDED FEB-MAR 200 5 25 1 5 5 1 2 15 2 3 50 0 1 0 3 0 0 13 4 0 4 5 0 26 8 0 2 6 37 5 17 9 0 0 4 2 0 1 ACTIVE  APR 200 86 1912 105 40 148 76 386 1598 22 218 1895 35 20 170 55 7 138 866 1052 288 1022 29 17 2023 359 79 186 295 3971 35 974 96 3 46 1002 132 24 212 INACTIVE  APR 200 32 603 99 0 143 7 218 941 8 46 58 19 63 160 7 0 100 804 502 113 150 22 2 105 50 79 41 236 882 0 197 0 0 22 210 97 2 197 TOTAL  APR 200 118 2515 204 40 291 83 604 2539 30 264 1953 54 83 330 62 7 238 1670 1554 401 1172 51 19 2128 409 158 227 531 4853 35 1171 96 3 68 1212 229 26 409 INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 39NEW ZEALAND NIGERIA NORWAY PAKISTAN PERU PHILIPPINES POLAND PORTUGAL QATAR RUSSIAN FEDERATION SAUDI ARABIA SINGAPORE SLOVAKIA SLOVENIA SOUTH AFRICA SPAIN SRI LANKA SWEDEN SWITZERLAND TAIWAN THAILAND TURKEY UNITED ARAB EMIRATES UNITED KINGDOM UNITED STATES VENEZUELA VIRGIN ISLANDS (BRITISH ZIMBABWE OVERALL TOTALS 202 0 409 152 103 263 263 144 35 123 55 772 25 11 843 316 34 607 437 1685 639 263 36 4563 181 92 50 13 30 1 3 5 5 2 13 2 21 1 1 33 24 9 0 1 20 5 2 6 1 35 5 0 13 23 112 0 0 4 0 114 5 193 130 86 241 246 60 36 141 79 647 10 12 370 150 32 330 275 1500 535 230 48 2298 9039 35 12 32 30 91 0 221 24 30 24 38 85 0 15 0 134 15 0 493 171 4 283 163 220 109 33 1 2288 9265 15 1 2 1990 205 5 414 154 116 265 284 145 36 156 79 781 25 12 863 321 36 613 438 1720 644 263 49 4586 18304 50 13 34  INFOSTREAM MAY/JUN 2008  © THOMSON REUTERS 2008 0 CONTRIBUTORS PRODUCT MANAGEMENT PAUL BACON DATAFEEDS paul. [email  protected] com +44 (0)20 7324 6873 JULIAN RICKARDS DATASTREAM ADVANCE, DSWINDOWS, DSDDE julian. [email  protected] com +44 (0)20 7336 1944 CASEY PEARCE DATASTREAM INTERACTIVE CHARTING casey. [email  protected] com +44 (0)20 7324 9359 IAN BROCKLEHURST THOMSON ONE INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS ian. [email  protected] com +44 (0)20 7324 8890 DAVID BERNARD THOMSON ONE INVESTMENT BANKING SOLUTIONS david. [email  protected] com +44 (0)20 7336 1930 STEVE KELLY THOMSON EXTEL SURVEYS steve. [email  protected] com +44 (0)20 7324 9200 CONTENT MANAGEMENTNICOLAS DE LAURENS CASTELET GLOBAL CONTENT SOLUTIONS nicolas. [email  protected] com +44 (0)20 7336 1950 STEPHEN CARTER COMPANY ACCOUNTS stephen. [email  protected] com +44 (0)29 2063 1943 ANNE SIEBER EQUITIES, EQUITY INDICES, FUNDS & 3RD-PARTY DATA anne. [email  protected] com +44 (0)20 7324 9741 JAMES BRIGHT I/B/E/S GLOBAL AGGREGATES ESTIMATES DATA james. [email  protected] com +44 (0)20 7324 9600 NELSON SALSINHA DERIVATIVES & COMMODITIES nelson. [email  protected] com +44 (0)20 7324 9455 MADELEINE DISARIO ECONOMICS madeleine. [email  protected] com +1 301 545 4255 TONY MCCORMACK FIXED INCOME tony. [email  protected] com +44 (0)20 7014 1232

20 College Essay Topics Key Ideas Why Education Is Important

20 College Essay Topics Key Ideas Why Education Is Important According to Nelson Mandela, Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world and promoting it is pivotal. Therefore, if you- a college student- are assigned with the task of writing on its importance, the responsibility of doing justice to your essay is one you cannot take lightly for it is our collective responsibility to let the world know its importance. To simplify your task of writing about the importance of education, this article will provide you with enough information to get you started as well as a guideline on how to go about developing your essay in a structured and coherent fashion. Here, you will find 20 topics dedicated to the subject matter you were assigned as well as a sample essay below. And here is one last professional tip, it is important that when selecting a topic, you chose a topic that resonates closely with your interests because writing on what truly interests you is quite easier than the alternative. So here are the 20 topics you can choose from when drafting your own essay assignment: Analysing Education’s Ability to Empower Young Women Population Education as a Strategy for Children’s Survival and Better Maternal Health The Impact of Education on Child Nutrition and Reducing Malnutrition How Education Can Reduce Global Poverty and Hunger Is Education the Cure for Poverty? Girls, HIV/AIDS, and Education Education in the Fight Against HIV and AIDS The Impact of Education on Personal and Economic Growth Why Educating Girls Matter to Economic Growth Tackling Youth Unemployment Through Educational Programs The Role of International Education in Peacebuilding Analysing the Contribution of Education to Eliminating Social Conflict and Extremism Importance of Education in our Lives and Societies Importance of Education for Sustainable Environmental Development The Role of Education as a Tool for Environmental Conservation The Role of Education in the Pursuit of Globalization and Internationalization The Importance of Education in National Integration Impact of Education in Rural Development Processes The Importance of Education in Integrating Muslim Youths Why Education is Important for Financial Literacy You would agree that these are some cool topics on the importance of education you can work on for your college essay. And a cursory look at the topics on this list, will show that every one of them does not need too much research to accurately draft an essay on the subject matter. To further simplify your task of drafting an essay on education, here are 10 facts which can be integrated throughout the body of your essay as well is our genre focused essay guide. Lastly, a sample essay will be provided to serve as a guideline for anyone reading this. Note that the sample essay will also take its topic from one on the list above. Sample College Essay: How Education Can Reduce Global Poverty and Hunger The large strides made by UNICEF in ensuring the provision of quality basic education for children has been lauded for all the right reasons and in the 2000 Education for All (EFA) program as well as other like-minded initiatives were also launched to support UNICEF’s push for education in both urban and rural areas. This raises a few questions: why is educating the world so important to UNICEF? And what have these initiatives achieved globally? These among other questions are what this essay intends to answer in the coming paragraphs. The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) launched by the UNICEF in 2000 and its follow up program the Sustainable Development Goals created in 2015 have been successful in increasing the economic situation of both underdeveloped and developing nations, enlightening the world on communicable diseases as well as pushing an agenda for worldwide peace. But here, emphasis will be placed on how educating the world’s populace has reduced global poverty and how aggressively pursuing the global education agenda will continue to reduce hunger internationally. The education of an entire population has been known to lead to economic growth which is viewed as a by-product of global education. Studies on the effect of education has shown that each extra year an individual spends schooling directly increases his or her ability to earn by 10% later on in life. A population’s increased ability to earn then creates a trickle-down effect as adults now posses the ability to adequately take care of their families as well as send their children to school. The overall economic growth in turn reduces the percentage of people living in poverty as more and more adults begin to have the financial capacity to cater for their immediate family. Also important is the fact that a country with 40% of its adult population having achieved some form of education, experiences continuous economic growth thereby putting it on the right track to eliminate extreme poverty in the EU by 2020 or in Africa by 2063 according to UNICEF’s initiatives. Educating the world is an admirable goal but the disparity between the number of girls educated compared to boys has been lopsided for decades in favour of boys. This disparity has prompted UNICEF to place special emphasis on educating women/girls and the corresponding results have been encouraging. Statistics show that educating the women has led to a 22% increase in crop yield in Kenya. This goes to show that applying these educative initiatives in gender-repressive communities globally, will accelerate the goal of ending poverty and world hunger more quickly. Therefore pursuing a global education agenda is an admirable goal which everyone should be involved with in their own capacity. It is encouraged that we write essays supporting educational initiatives on a global scale, discuss them on social media networks or be a part of the SDG which took effect in 2015. Here we come to the end of these guidelines on choosing a topic and developing your chosen topic in a coherent manner and hopefully, the directions provided here will serve you well when drafting your essay. References: Wikipedia. (2015). Educational Equity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_equity Kavya, V. (2015). Top 15 Reasons Why Education is Extremely Important. http://listsurge.com/top-15-reasons-education-important/ Fien, J. (2001). Education for Sustainability 50-53. Sensoy, O. (2008). Is Everyone Really Equal? 30-33. Demillo, A. (2005). Revolution in Higher Education 59-62. The UNAID Initiative. (2014). Educate Girls Fight AIDS. http://data.unaids.org/GCWA/gcwa_fs_girlseducation_sep05_en.pdf Caroline, H. (2009). The Role of Education as a Tool for Environmental Conservation and Sustainable Development. iccs.org.uk/wp-content/thesis/phd-howe,caroline09.pdf

How to Flavor Rock Candy

How to Flavor Rock Candy Ive been trying out kits for educational toys, like slime and the chemical volcano, but one kit I just cant bring myself to buy-and-try is the rock candy kit. Why? Its around $12 and doesnt even come with the sugar... just a stick, container, and flavored food coloring. I can come up with my own jar and popsicle stick to make my own rock candy and I suspect you can too. If you want flavoring, there are couple of ways to go. You can add a few drops of flavoring to your saturated sugar solution. These are extracts or flavorings that you would buy in the spice section of a grocery store. You use these by adding food coloring and a couple of drops of flavoring to your crystal solution. Cherry, lemon, lime, orange, mint, and cinnamon all work well. Another option is to dissolve Kool-aidâ„ ¢ or other drink mix in the crystal growing solution to (intensely) flavor your rock candy.If you have experience with the rock candy kit and think its worth the money, let me know and Ill try it out, but I suspect you can save your pennies and get equally good or better results on your own. Troubleshoot Problems Growing Rock Candy