Moving Average Method: Limitations and Types of

Moving Average Method: Limitations and Types of Forecasting is very essential and important part in business planning. It refers to estimation of the demand for products and services in coming future and the resource necessary to produce these outputs. Estimates of the future demand for products or services are commonly referred to as sales forecast. In other words, forecasting is the art and science of predicting future events. Is is not mere a guess or prediction about the future without any rational basis. It may involve taking historical data or intuitive prediction in the absence of historical data. Basis of Forecasting Forecasting by its nature uses data from the past period to forecast the future projection of the company. Historical data includes your organization`s financial statements and any information you believe has relative predictive value to the future success of your company. Historical data doesnt have to solely come from your company; it can also be historical macroeconomic data, such as the Consumer Confidence Index, interest rates, housing starts or any other economic variable you believe has an effect on your business based on your business experience and observations. Moving Average Method A moving average method uses a number of most recent historical actual data values to generate a forecast. The moving average for n number of periods in the moving average is calculated as : This method uses the average of a number of adjoining data points or periods. The averaging process uses overlapping observations to generate averages. The term moving refers to the way averages are calculate the forecast moves up or down the time series to pick observations to calculate an average of a fixed number of observations. In our ten periods on the question the moving averages method would use the average of the most recent ten observations of the data in the time series as the forecast for the next period. The moving average is commonly used with time series data to smooth out the short-term fluctuation and highlights long term trends or cycles. The threshold between Long-term and short-term term depends on the application and the parameter of the moving average will be set accordingly. For example it usually used in the technical analysis of financial data like stock prices and return various stock or trading volume A moving average also called rolling average, is an average price movement indicator, showing average value of the data within specific time frame. Moving average levels are interpreted as resistance in a rising market, or support in a falling market. Here a support level means a price rank where the price tends to find support as it is going down. The price is more likely to bounce off this level rather than break through it. A resistance level is the opposite of a support level and is an upper extreme where the price tends to find resistance as it is going up. Modern graphical analytic programs calculate wide range of different Moving Average types and offer assortment of their visualization styles. A time frame for calculation could be set as short, intermediate or long term. For long term trend the 200-days average is most popular; for medium term 50-days average and for short term 10 days average. Following types of rolling averages are used more often than others: a simple moving average (SMA); a weighted moving average (WMA) and an exponentially moving average (EMA). Types of moving average method Simple moving average method it is used to estimate the average of a demand time series and remove the effects of random fluctuation. It is most useful when demand has no pronounced trend or seasonal fluctuations. In this method if we use n period moving averages, the average demand for the n most recent time periods is calculated and used as forecast for the next time period. For the next period, after the demand is known, the older demand from the previous average is replaced with the most recent demand and the average is recalculated. Weighted moving average method in this method each historical demand in the moving average can have its own weight and the sum of the weight equals one. For example, in a 5 period weighted moving average model, the most recent period might be assigned a weight 0.50, the second most recent period might be assigned a weight of 0.30, 0.20, 0.10, and for third most period with a weight of 0.05. text{WMA}_{M} = { n p_{M} + (n-1) p_{M-1} + cdots + 2 p_{(M-n+2)} + p_{(M-n+1)} over n + (n-1) + cdots + 2 + 1} The advantage of weighted average method is that is allows emphasis on recent demand over earlier demand. Exponential Smoothing Method It is a sophisticated weighted moving method that is still relatively easy to understand and use. It requires only three items of data: periods forecast, the actual demand for this period and ÃŽÂ ± which is referred to as smoothing constant and having a value between 0 and 1. The formula of the ESM is as follows: Ft = Ft-1 + ÃŽÂ ± (At-1 Ft-1) Where Ft = Forecast for the period (t) Ft-1 = Forecast for the previous period (t-1) At-1 = Actual demand for the previous period (t-1) ÃŽÂ ± = Smoothing constant (value varies from 0 to 1) Selecting a smoothing constant is basically a matter of judgment or trial and error. Commonly used values of ÃŽÂ ± range from 0.05 to 0.5. Feature Moving average method:- Smoothing data Moving average help in smoothing or smooth function on the original sequence, the original sequence of fluctuation is weakened, and the average interval number N bigger, stronger on series smoothing effect. Odd and Even Moving average time interval number N is odd, only a moving average, the moving average as the middle moving average terms in a trend representative value; and when the moving average term N is even, the moving average value represents the middle position of the even level, not on a time, is in need of an adjacent two average value of the moving average, it can make the average value of a certain period of time, this is called shift is average, also become the center of moving average. Seasonal changes When the series include seasonal change, moving average interval number should be consistent with the seasonal variation of N length, in order to eliminate the seasonal variation; if the sequence contains a cycle of change, from the terms N and cycle length should be basically the same average, cycle fluctuation elimination can be better Advantages of Moving average method: Easily understandable The moving average model assumption is that the most accurate prediction of future demand is a simple (linear) combination of past demand moving average method is easy to understand than any other method. This method smooths the data and makes it easier to spot trend.. Simple and Easy Calculation Moving average is calculated by taking the arithmetic mean of a given set of values. They are easier to use than other regression models. For example, to calculate a basic 10-day moving average you would add up the closing prices from the past 10 days and then divide the result by 10. Stable Forecasts how responsive we want the forecasting model to be to changes in the actual demand data must be balanced against our desire to suppress undesirable chance variation or noise in the data. With help of moving average can achieve such objectives. Limitations of Moving Average Method Equal weighing is given to each of the values used in the moving average calculation, whereas it is reasonable most reasonable data is more important to current situations. The moving average method doesnot takes into account the data outside the average period. The use of unadjusted moving average can lead to misguiding forecast The moving average method to a large number of data records from the past; Through the introduction of new data is more and more time, continuously revised average value, as predicted value. The basic principle of moving average method is through the moving average to eliminate irregular time series of changes and other changes, thus revealing the long-term trend of time series. Solution to the Given Problem Year No. of Cars 3 Year Moving Total 3 Year Moving Average 1 1324 ____ ____ 2 1605 ____ ____ 3 1486 4415 1471.67 4 1567 4658 1552.67 5 1687 4740 1580.00 6 1021 4275 1425.00 7 1424 4132 1377.33 8 986 3431 1143.67 9 1529 3939 1313.00 10 1425 3940 1313.33

Health Care Inequities for Aboriginal Women Essay -- Health, Access to

Health care inequities for Aboriginal women There are 1.1 million Aboriginal peoples living in Canada as of 1996 and 408,100 of them are women (Statistics Canada, 2000; Dion Stout et al, 2001). More than half live in urban centres and two thirds of those reside in Western Canada (Hanselmann, 2001). Vancouver is comprised of 28,000 Aboriginal people representing 7% of the population (Joseph, 1999). Of this total population, 70% live in Vancouver’s poorest neighbourhood which is the Downtown Eastside (DTES). Health care inequities can be elucidated by the research that identifies the social, economic and political ideologies that reflect aspects of cultural safety (Crandon, 1986; O’Neil, 1989 as cited in Browne & Fiske, 2001). There are various factors that affect the mistreatment of aboriginal peoples as they access health care in local health care facilities such as hospitals and clinics. Aboriginal women face many barriers and are discriminated against as a result based on their visible minority status such as race, gender and class (Gerber, 1990; Dion Stout, 1996; Voyageur, 1996 as cited in Browne & Fiske, 2001). A study done on Aboriginal peoples in Northern B.C. showed high rates of unemployment, underemployment and dependency on social welfare monies (Browne & Fiske, 2001). This continued political economic marginalisation of aboriginal peoples widens the gap between the colonizers and the colonized. The existence of racial profiling of aboriginal peoples by â€Å"Indian s tatus† often fuels more stigmatization of these people because other Canadians who do not see the benefits of compensations received with having this status often can be resentful in what they may perceive is another compensation to aboriginal peoples. The re... ...ir personal encounters with Aboriginal classmates that they might have had in high school. Life experiences, parental upbringing, ethnic roots, social status and education all shape nursing practices. Nurses and other health care professionals are trained in institutions that fail to recognise the socio-political injustices that occur in health care settings. In addition to this, their experiences in their work and in their personal lives and communities, they already have opinions about certain groups of people. â€Å"Cultural safety would encourage nurses to question popular notions of culture and cultural differences, to be more aware of the dominant social assumptions that misrepresent certain people and groups, and to reflect critically on the wider social discourses that inevitably influence nurses’ interpretive perspectives and practices† (Browne, 2009, p. 21).

Norm Violation Essay

Brenda Mora 4 October 2011 SOC 101-3003 Norm Violation Exercise The norm violation exercise that I decided to experiment with was invasion of space. My plan was to go up to random people in small groups of three or four and ask one of them for help, thank them, hug them, and walk away; my friend thought it sounded like fun so he volunteered to perform the encounters. If somebody I didn’t know came up and hugged me for no apparent reason I would most likely think they were either weird or drunk. For this reason I decided to do this particular experiment.Most of the people my friend hugged did not react in the way I predicted. I decided to carry out the experiment at the Wal-Mart on Charleston and Decatur since it’s close to where we both live and it is never scarce in people. We enacted the experiment in different sections of the store since there were more dense amounts of people in certain areas. The areas where we performed the experiment were in the electronics depar tment, the home decorations department, the food section, and the cash register section.The electronics department had plenty of people, males in particular, I was especially eager to see the feedback of the men in this section since my friend is a guy. The home decorations department had plenty of females; the food and cash register sections had a mixture of both genders. The first person we approached was a male Wal-Mart sales associate arranging phone displays in the electronics department. We both went up to him and my friend asked him where the exercising equipment was located, he responded and pointed us in the direction, as I walked my friend thanked him and gave him a big bear hug.The sales associate let my friend hug him, patted his back, laughed, and starred at us in an awkward manner as we left. He didn’t have much reaction to my friend hugging him. It didn’t seem to have bothered him, as soon as we left he simply returned to his work. The second encounter i nvolved a man with his wife and son and what seemed to be one of their friends or relative which also occurred in the electronics department. My friend went up to them as I stood behind a magazine rack and he asked the woman’s husband if he could point him in the direction of the clothing department.The man gave my friend directions and just as he was returning to the conversation between his friend and wife, my friend quickly put his arms around the slightly large man and embraced him for about three seconds before he let go, thanked him, and walked away. As my friend walked away I noticed the man simply and quickly returned to his conversation as if nothing had happened. His wife and friend starred at my friend as he walked away and laughed as if they still couldn’t believe what had just happened.The third and fourth group of people that we encountered took place in the home decorations section of the store. Both groups were all women; one group consisted of two wome n and the other group of three young women. The first group of two women seemed to have been a mother and a middle aged daughter, my friend approached the women and asked for their opinion on an item, the daughter answered him but before she could go back to her business he hugged her, I noticed a frightened expression on her face and my friend told me he noticed she held on to her mother’s arm as he hugged her.The second group of women were also asked for their opinion on a Halloween decoration, the girl told my friend what she thought and before she could get back to her business he hugged her. One of the two girls with her asked her if she knew him and the other girl laughed and starred at my friend, the girl herself couldnt believed it and she even blushed a bit.The fifth and sixth encounter took place in the food and cash register section with a distinct group of people; the first was a family of three consisting of a husband, wife and child and the second of two female Wal-Mart sales associates surrounded by people in line waiting to pay for their groceries. The family of three were choosing their food when my friend approached the husband and asked him if he could reach something from the top shelf for him since he was exceedingly tall, the man gladly agreed and my friend thanked him and quickly hugged him.The wife laughed while the child took no notice and as my friend walked away the man stopped him and said â€Å"Your welcome, man†, this was the first time anybody had responded to his action. The second group of females at the cash register were helping customers when my friend approached them and asked for help, one of them gave him directions and began about her business when he hugged her, she laughed and went back to what she was doing.However, her co-worker did not approve and gave my friend a cold stare as he walked away, the people waiting in line laughed for three seconds, gave a few stares, and went back to their business. The last group of people were two males, an older and younger brother who were testing out video games in the electronics section. My friend walked up, stood next to them and asked for their opinion on a video game, the older boy answered my friend and as soon as he finished my friend hugged him and quickly walked away.As he walked away I observed the younger boys face which expressed how much he couldn’t believe it, the older boy didn’t laugh at first but then he came around, shook his head, laughed and walked away. My friend said that as he hugged the boy he went stiff and said â€Å"whoa†, as if he tried to tell him to back off, but no words could come out. This boys reaction was my favorite because the expression on his face said let me go but at the same time he seemed scared as if my friend would hurt him if he said anything.This experiment was interesting because of all of the different reactions that I saw. I did not expect for most of the reactions to resul t in the same way. I hoped for somebody to speak up and ask what my friend’s problem was but nobody seemed to care much. The only reactions that truly caught my attention were the three females where one of them blushed and the group with the older and younger brother where the older brother tried to speak up but couldn’t. Besides a few cold stares, there were no severe consequences.

Health Care Organization An Aggressive Complex System Essay

1.0 INTRODUCTION: Health care organization is an aggressive complex system which describes the functions and characteristic features of health care service providers and explains the knowledge and concepts health care management in detail and takes preventive measures to reduce uncertainty and enhance to develop several health care services to the individuals to maintain and regulate the integrity and effectiveness of the health care organization and professionals (Wilson, 1980). This report describes the governance views, objectives, strength and weaknesses in health care system, management in health 2.0 GOVERNANCE: 2.1 Definition: Defined as process of action towards reaching the goal and the activities derived legally and the policies are framed with respect to social responsibilities and provide effective service to the community (Rosenau, 1990). Governance mainly focuses on decision making, framing the policies and utilization of resources to the nation. 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