Monday, May 26, 2008

Statue of Zeus at Olympia

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the classical Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was made by the well-known classical sculptor Phidias (5th century BC) circa 432 BC in Olympia, Greece.

The seated statue, some 12 metres (39 feet) tall, occupied the whole width of the aisle of the temple built to house it. "It seems that if Zeus were to stand up," the geographer Strabo noted early in the 1st century BC, "he would unroof the temple." Zeus was a chryselephantine sculpture, made of ivory and accent with gold plating. In the sculpture, he was seated on a magnificent throne of cedar wood, inlaid with ivory, gold, ebony, and precious stones. In Zeus' right hand there was a little statue of Nike, the goddess of victory, and in his left hand, a shining sceptre on which an eagle perched. Plutarch, in his Life of the Roman general Aemilius Paulus, records that the victor over Macedon "was moved to his soul, as if he had beheld the god in person," while the Greek orator Dio Chrysostom declared that a single glimpse of the sculpture would make a man forget his earthly troubles.

Perhaps the greatest discovery in terms of finding out about this wonder came in 1954-1958 with the dig of the workshop at Olympia where Phidias created the statue. Tools, terracotta molds and a cup inscribed "I belong to Pheidias" were found here, where the traveller Pausanius said the Zeus was construct. This has enabled archaeologists to re-create the techniques used to make the great work.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Natural Environment

The natural environment commonly referred to only as the environment, is a word that comprise all part of living and non-living things that take place naturally on Earth. This term contains a little key component:

Complete scenery units that gathering as natural systems with no huge human participation, including all plants, animals, rocks, etc. and natural phenomena so as to take place within their borders.

The whole natural resources and the phenomena that need boundaries, like air, water and climate. Natural features which occur within areas a lot partial by man. The natural surroundings are contrasted with the built environment, which includes the areas and components that are directly influenced by man. A geographical area is regarded as a natural environment, if the human force on it is set aside under a definite limited level. This level depends on the demanding context, and changes in different places and contexts.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Economic order quantity

Economic order quantity is that stage of inventory that minimizes the total of inventory holding cost and ordering cost. The framework used to decide this order quantity is also known as Wilson EOQ Model. The model was developed by F. W. Harris in 1913. But still R. H. Wilson is given credit for his early in-depth study of the model.

Underlying assumptions

The ordering cost is constant.
The annual (or monthly or whatever periodicity you desire, here we will use annual) demand for the item is stable over time and it is known to the firm.
Quantity discounts doesn't exist.
The order is received immediately after placing the order.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Technical analysis

Technical analysis is a financial markets technique that claims the ability to forecast the future direction of security prices through the study of past market data, primarily price and volume. In its purest form, technical analysis considers only the actual price behavior of the market or instrument, on the assumption that price reflects all relevant factors before an investor becomes aware of them through other channels. Technical analysts may employ models and trading rules based, for example, on price transformations, such as the Relative Strength Index, moving averages, regressions, inter-market and intra-market price correlations, cycles or, classically, through recognition of chart patterns.

Technical analysis is widely used among traders and financial professionals, but is considered by many to be pseudoscience or "voodoo finance;" it receives little or no direct support from academic sources and is considered akin to "astrology." Academics such as Eugene Fama say the evidence for technical analysis is sparse and is inconsistent with the weak form of the generally-accepted efficient market hypothesis. Economist Burton Malkiel argues, "Technical analysis is an anathema to the academic world." He further argues that under the weak form of the efficient market hypothesis, "...you cannot predict future stock prices from past stock prices."