• Download data on a company’s stock history. From this data, create scatterplots, histograms, and calculate the mean, median, mode, and standard deviation of some data points. Write a 4-6 page report including the graphs and descriptive statistics you have created.
  Business analytics techniques are used to facilitate decision making by transforming large amounts of raw data into meaningful information. Many businesses rely on analysis of relevant historical data to make key strategic and operational decisions. Therefore, understanding how to use techniques such as graphical representation and descriptive statistics to translate raw data into useful information can be a valuable skill in an organization.
  In this assessment and the next, you will have the opportunity to sharpen your analytics skills by locating and interpreting real-life stock data.
  You have been learning about how to explore data. In this assessment, you will apply those skills by downloading a practical dataset and creating graphical representations of that data. The work you do in this assessment will lay the foundation for future assessments in which you analyze and interpret those graphical representations. Since the purpose of business analytics is to make sense of large quantities of raw data, this assessment helps you develop skills in applying analytics to business contexts by practicing the exploration and display of data.
  In addition to graphical and tabular summary methods, numeric or quantitative variables and data can be summarized numerically using various techniques of description and display.
  Descriptive methods, which describe existing data, are also methods for using a subset of the available data to estimate or test a theory about a measurement on a larger group. This larger group is called the population, and the measurement being studied is the parameter. The smaller group, or subset, of the population that is taken in order to make an inference (to make an estimate or test a theory) is referred to as the sample. The measurement taken on that sample is then referred to as the statistic, which is usually the best single-number estimate for the population parameter of interest. Most often, however, the estimate should not be restricted to a single number that would be exactly correct or incorrect. Instead, it is preferable to calculate some range of possible values between which there can be a certain percent confidence that the true population parameter falls. These are referred to as confidence intervals.
  Scenario
  Business analytics techniques are used to facilitate decision making by transforming large amounts of raw data into meaningful information. Many businesses rely on analysis of relevant historical data to make key strategic and operational decisions with the goal of gaining or maintaining competitive advantage. Therefore, understanding how to use techniques such as graphical representation and descriptive statistics to translate raw data into useful information can be a valuable skill in an organization.
  In this assessment and the next, you will have the opportunity to sharpen your analytics skills by locating and interpreting real-life stock data, creating a business report, and presenting the information from the business report with your supervisor and colleagues as part of a decision-making effort.
  Your Role
  You are a member of a business analyst group interested in a publicly traded company. Your supervisor has asked you to create a presentation, including graphical representations from raw stock data. From that raw stock data, you are to create a business report for a company-wide meeting at the end of the quarter. Your work and the work of others will result in a Business Report, which will be utilized to help company leadership make decisions.
  Your first task is to pick a publicly held company with only one business platform. So do not pick Apple, Amazon, Disney, et cetera. You want a company that plays in only one industry. Then you are to provide an overview of the company, including business context. Remember that business context includes many aspects of the company, industry, competition, et cetera.
  The second task is prepping stock history data from the business or company and creating scatter plots and a histograms.
  The third task is to calculate mean, median, mode, and standard deviation of the adjusted daily closing stock price and the stock volume.
  The fourth task is to provide a summary of the information you provide (including data analysis) without bias and with factual information including citations.
  It is your responsibility to present visually and to interpret the data into meaningful information using analysis and descriptive statistics.
  Instructions
  Select a publicly traded business or stock that plays in only one industry in which you have interest. Download the raw data on the company’s stock history.
  Follow these steps to locate and download stock history from Yahoo! Finance:
  • Go to Yahoo Finance.
  • Search for and find the stock information of your chosen company. Remember do not use a company that plays in multiple industries.
  • Once you pull up the general data on the company, review the screen links throughout until you find the link for Historical Data. Click on the Historical Data link. Then select the following settings above the table:
    • Select Time Period of one year.
    • Select “Historical Prices.”
    • Select Frequency as “Daily.”
    • Click Apply.
    • Click Download Data. Go to the bottom of your screen or your Downloads folder to open the Excel file you just downloaded. Open the Excel file. Check to be sure that you have enough lines to show the whole year. If not, reset the settings at the top of the Historical Data chart and try again.
    • Once you are sure that you have a year’s worth of data, save the Excel file.
  • Using the Excel file with the year’s stock data, conduct descriptive analysis as follows:
  1. Create a scatter plot of the highest stock price (in the column labeled “High”) against time. Write several sentences explaining the process/steps by which you created this graph.
  2. Create a scatter plot of the lowest stock price (in the column labeled “Low”) against time. Write several sentences explaining the process/steps by which you created this graph.
  3. Create a histogram of the adjusted daily closing stock price (in the column labeled “Adj Close”). Make sure the histogram is meaningful by adjusting the bin size so you can see the shape of the histogram. Write several sentences explaining the process/steps by which you created this graph.
  4. Create a histogram of the stock trading volume (in the column labeled “Volume”). Make sure the histogram is meaningful by adjusting the bin size so you can see the shape of the histogram. Write several sentences explaining the process/steps by which you created each graph.
  5. Complete the following for each of the four graphs:
     • Make sure the x and y axis have appropriate labels—“Stock Price in USD” or “Date D/M/Y” for example.
     • Change the title of the graph to communicated what the graph is communicating.
     • Add options—color, trendlines, legend, other?
  6. Calculate the mean, median, mode, and standard deviation of the adjusted daily closing stock price.
  7. Put answers of calculations in table format for easy review.
  8. Write several sentences explaining the process by which you calculated these statistics.
  9. Calculate the mean, median, mode, and standard deviation of the stock volume. Put in table format for easy review. Write a sentence explaining the process by which you calculated these statistics.
  10. Prepare a 4-6 page report that you would present to your supervisor, including the following:
      • An APA-formatted title page.
      • A 1-2 page introduction describing the background of your chosen company and its practical extensive business context. You should use at least four sources of information on the company, industries the company participates in, history, mission, platforms, products, competitive advantage, and competitors by industry.
      • A section labeled Graphical Representations of Data, in which you include the four graphs you created above and short descriptions of the process you used to create each graph.
      • A section labeled Descriptive Statistics, in which you include the statistics you calculated above and explanation of the procedures you followed to calculate the statistics.
      • A summary of what the data suggests. No opinion please. See textbook information on how to interpret data. Please remain unbiased in your summary. You may use additional resources (and cite) to help you interpret the data. For example: What does Standard Deviation say about stock volatility?
  11. Your paper should be APA-formatted with in-text citations and a corresponding references page. Remember to cite the sources of your financial data. Include at least four sources of information for your page and reflect on reference page.
      Walkthrough: You may view the following media piece to help you understand concepts addressed in this assessment:
  • Using Analytic Techniques to Add Meaning to Data Walkthrough.
  • Additional Requirements
  • Length: 4-6 pages, double-spaced. Include a title page and the graphical representations of the data selected.
  • Written communication: Written communication should be free of errors that detract from the overall message.
  • Evaluation
    By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies through corresponding scoring guide criteria:
  • Competency 2: Use analytic and statistical techniques to make meaning of large quantities of data.
    • Create four different graphical representations of data.
    • Calculate descriptive statistics for two different variables.
    • Summarize the processes by which each graph and statistics were created and calculated.
  • Competency 4: Present the results of data analysis in clear and meaningful ways to multiple stakeholders.
    • Introduce the company and practical business context.
    • Correctly format citations and references using current APA style.
    • Write content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.

• Review Is My Source Credible? from the UMGC library.  
• Search the library and/or the internet to locate 3 reliable information sources that you may use for this assignment. The purpose of this step is to get the research process started; you are not required to use these information sources in the final version of your assignment.  
• Write 1-2 sentences for each information source explaining why you believe these sources are reliable using what you learned from the UMGC library article.  
• Write references to the 3 information sources in APA format: APA 7th Edition Citation Examples: General Rules.  
• Create an outline for the writing assignment. The outline should be in a bullet list format and include the major topics that you plan to include in your assignment, with some supportive detail for each topic. It should not be a draft with full sentences and paragraphs. Here are two resources that may be helpful as you write your outline: 
  • UMGC (2020) Outlining What You Will Write. 
  • UMGC (2020) Prewriting and Outlining.

 Bioprinting. Your father has been on a waitlist for a new kidney for several years, but no match has been found. You hear about bioprinting on the news and decide to do some research so you can tell him about it. Start with an explanation of what bioprinting is, and how the process works. Relate it to what you have learned about cells, tissues, and organs. What are the benefits of bioprinting? What are the current challenges? What are stem cells and how can they be used for bioprinting? What is bioink and how is it used for bioprinting? Include a least two examples of current research in this field, and conclude with predictions for the future. Finally, do you believe that your father could benefit from this technology in his lifetime?  

IDENTIFY AN ARTICLE that details a case of an organization that has engaged in the business process redesign or business reengineering process, which specifically speaks to the introduction of some sort of management information system. 

2. PREPARE A WRITTEN REPORT to include the group’s analysis of the situation presented in the article identified by the group and a response to each of the questions posed below. As part of your response, students must speak on no less than five (5) of the various elements discussed over the course, including:

The Role of IT in Business, Types of Information Systems, Impact of IT on Organizations, Individuals, and Society, Database Management, Data Warehousing, IT Infrastructure,Strategic Information Systems, Information Systems Acquisition, System Development Life Cycle, Information System Security, IT Plan, Backup and Recovery Plan, IT Governance, Total Cost of Ownership. 

THE QUESTIONS (these questions may be answered in any order): 

1. What triggered the need for business process reengineering (BPR)?

 2. What was the scope and nature of the legacy information system(s) that exist at the organization? Identify if any, issues with the traditional file system which may have existed. 

3. Who carried out the BPR?

 4. What tools/resources (non-Information Technology) were used during the business process reengineering exercise? Name and discuss five (5) such tools/resources. 

5. What Information Technology resources were/could have been utilized during the business reengineering process?

6. What IT Infrastructure component(s) will be most affected by the BPR Process? Explain 

7. What impact will Information Technology/ Information Systems have on the organization’s business processes post the BPR? 

8. What aspect of the organization’s processes were engineered? Explain the role of information systems here. Discuss the process of acquiring these information system solutions.

 9. What activities were performed by/within the organization before the BPR implementation phase began (pre-BPR)? Outline these activities. 

10. What activities were performed by/within the organization after the BPR implementation phase began? Outline this process. 

11. What changes did the organization experience at the end of the business process reengineering exercise, specifically from the information systems, organizational and behavioralperspective? Identify and discuss such changes. 

12. What issues/problems were experienced during the business process reengineering exercise, specifically from the information systems perspective? Identify and discuss such issues/problems. 

13. How can or how did the organization mitigate the problems that were identified and discussed in the question above?

 14. What was the outcome of the BPR process? Explain in the context of tangible/intangible benefits. 

15. What are your recommendations and comments for the organization? 

Part A: 

Q1.1.  Write two examples of information that can be extracted from a geotechnical report. If you have not seen a geotechnical report before, you can do a search online. Here is one example: Geotechnical Report Sample. Please share any prior experience you may have had with interpreting a geotechnical report.  What information did you extract from the report?

Q1.2. In geotechnical reports, when fat clay (CH) is found in the subsurface explorations, geotechnical engineers provide some notes to the structural engineers and contractors to be careful when basing the design on this soil and performing excavation. Check the sample geotechnical report provided above for the notes about the fat clay. Fat clay has the potential for volumetric changes due to changes in moisture conditions and tends to swell when wet and shrink when dry. Its bearing capacity goes down when it gets wet. Watch this youtube video about the destructive impact of the fat clay on US 36 highway that happened in July 2019.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz0LL3gyHds

Write a paragraph and discuss how fat clay can adversely affect a project and how the effects can be controlled. Think from both the design and construction point of view. You can give specific examples like how it affects the foundation systems, retaining walls, and the excavation process.

Part B: 

Q2.1. Please share any prior experience you may have had with soil excavation processes. Answer these questions to the best of your knowledge. a) What were dominant the soil types? b) What was the water table condition? c) What type of excavation support system (if any) was installed?

Q2.2. Assume you are a project manager of a construction project that requires a deep cut. The project is located in a dense urban area. What challenges could you have to perform excavation? What type of excavation support systems should be considered? Explain.

Part C: 

Q3.1. Please share any prior experience you may have had with foundation placement. What was the foundation type? Provide some details about your project’s foundation system.

Q3.2. Under what conditions are deep foundations preferred over shallow foundations? Explain.