Financial regulation in United Kingdom

Financial regulation in United Kingdom Introduction What policy-maker should do to improve the system of financial regulation to achieve its objectives more effectively becomes a hot topic especially after the financial crisis 2008. More and more people begin to pay attention to financial regulation. According to a survey from FSA in 2009, the spontaneous awareness of financial regulation amongst people living in Great Britain aged 16 was 21% and it is the highest level since the survey began[1]. This essay will analyse financial regulation in United Kingdom into three perspectives; the first part will explain how the system of financial regulation operates in the United Kingdom. Then, the reasons why financial services industry should be supervised by regulation such as FSA, and new challenges in this system in response to the financial crisis 2008 will be discussed in second part, final part will be some problems with the current system in my point of view to better protect the economy and consumer. The financial regulation system in United Kingdom First of all, a brief review of the history in the late 20th century of financial regulation system in United Kingdom may be necessary and useful to establish a better background and deeper understanding. Londons financial district is known as The City for many years, until the end of 1970s there was no specific banking law in the UK, however, prompted by the secondary banking crisis in 1972, the Banking Act 1979 was promulgated and assigned formal responsibility for supervision of the UK banks (Heffernan 2007)[2]. The evolution of the UKs financial sector since the early 1980s can be thought of as the gradual confluence of three previously quite separate streams. These are the primary banking sector, monitored and supervised by the Bank of England; the organized markets in the City, and the rest of the financial sector, including building societies and insurance companies and licensed securities dealers, each of these steams exhibited significant differences in the style and nature of regulation, especially in the balance between statutory and self-regulation(Blair)[3]. As the consequence of the Stock Exchanges Big Bang, which means a series of financial reforms to encourage greater competition, the aim of Financial Services Act (1986) was to protect investors. One year after, the Bank Act 1987 was amended to the Banking Act 1979, this Act established a new Board of Bank Supervision, which assists the Bank of England in regulating other banks. The closure of BCCI (1991) and the bankruptcy of Barings (1995) exposed the problems of the supervisory abilities of the Bank of England and the drawbacks of the self-regulation (Heffernan, 2007)[4]. On 20 May 1997, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the reform of financial services regulation. In this resolution, banking supervision and investment services regulation were merged into the Securities and Investments Board (SIB), which changed its name to the Financial Services Authority in October 1997. Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 made the FSA became the sole regulator of all United Kingdom financial institutions. Since that time, FSA took the responsibility for all aspects of financial regulation progressively. According to the Financial Services and Markets Act, several other organisations responsibilities were transferred to the FSA, such as Building Societies Commission, Friendly Societies Commission, and Investment Management Regulatory Organisation. FSA superv ises the financial services industry as an independent non-governmental body, given statutory powers by the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000; We are a company limited by guarantee and financed by the financial services industry. The Treasury appoints the FSA Board, which currently consists of a Chairman, a Chief Executive Officer, two Managing Directors, and ten non-executive directors (including a lead non-executive member, the Deputy Chairman). This Board sets our overall policy, but day-to-day decisions and management of the staff are the responsibility of the Executive. FSA has four statutory objectives, maintaining confidence in the financial system, promoting public understanding of the financial system, securing the appropriate degree of protection for consumers; and reducing the extent to which it is possible for a business to be used for a purpose connected with financial crime (FSA, 2005)[5]. According to Heffernan (2007)[6], FSA tries to make a balance between risk and competition. RTO (risk to our objectives) approach is used widely to manage the risk in firms that supervised by the FSA (except the telecommunications and utilities sectors, etc), RTO also gives a score of probability of a certain firm to be a target for preventing the FSA from achieving its four statutory objectives. The score is easily calculated through: Impact score = (impact of the problem) * (probability of the problem arising) Each firm will be scored from A (very high risk) to D (low risk), and the score will also indicate the strength of supervision that FSA implements in a firm. Being a member of EU, UK financial regulation is influenced by EUs regulation in financial service industry, which is Financial Service Action Plan. An article named The EU Financial Services Action Plan: A Guide[7](2003), which prepared by HM Treasure, the Financial Services Authority and the Bank of England, introduced that UK financial law was effectively determined by the FSAP. It means that any UK financial regulation should not be conflict contradictory, and the UK authorities should be keen to ensure that the UK financial sector, corporate sector and consumer groups are consulted on, and fully understand the impact of, FSAP measures. European Commission uses FSAP to improve EU financial markets to be a Single Market, FSAP aims to fill gaps and eliminate remaining barriers among all EU members. Furthermore, in order to make EU financial services worked more effectively, Lamfalussy process was launched by EU Committee. It is a four-level, regulatory approach for adoption. Trying to consider the relationship between FSA and FSAP, the article also addressed that the FSA not only has extreme influence in UKs financial services, but also make its own contributions in EU, HM Treasury, the FSA and the Bank play key roles in identifying, influencing, promoting and overseeing the UKs interests in financial services in the EU. Promoting public understanding of the financial system and ensuring an appropriate degree of protection for consumers are objectives of FSA which also inform in EU. Why we need financial services industry to be regulated A brief history of UK financial regulation, which was introduced at the beginning of this article, may be a part of the whole picture. However, there are other extremely important reasons that hastened the coming of a type of financial regulation represented by FSA. At first, it is still necessary to review an important feature, which is self-regulation, in the development of the FSA. Self-regulation has proved to be an effective and reasonably efficient system for the British securities industry until very recently[8] (Rider). However, just like the historical review that illustrated above, with the upward rising of scandals and the dramatic change in security market, the foundation of the monopoly of self-regulation mechanism was challenged before the emergence of the super-regulator. Although FSA 1986 seemed that make a balance between statutory framework and self-regulation, the financial regulation system was still largely depended on self-regulation. The issue of mis-selling pensions has the most impact to make the government to make the final decision to end the self-regulation. Public confidence was significantly lost in personal pensions at that time and the truth that SIB lack adequate enforcement powers to take regulatory actions prec ipitated the process of giving financial service industry a statutory regulation system. After FSMA 2000, FSAs enforcement is safeguarded and the whole financial system in United Kingdom has leaned to be supervised in statutory way rather than self-regulated. The economic rationale for regulation will be examined as follow. According to an article, The Economic Rationale for Financial Regulation[9], written by David Llewelyn (1999), he analyses several reasons why there is a demand for a systematic regulation in economic world. Firstly, there are potential systemic risks in financial industry especially in banking industry. The main systemic risk is bank run, and worse still; this can leads to a solvent bank becoming insolvent since the limitation of most bank assets to be marketable, and due to asymmetric information problems, bank assets cannot be sold at par as potential buyers, these will add a high risk premium in the purchase price. Therefore, for the sake of depositors and banking institutions, a type for regulation on the bases of systemic risk is necessary. Secondly, market is not perfectly competitive. The main reason of market imperfection is that not all the investors can get adequate information of a certain market which they are engaging in, and this will impose costs on the consumer. Consequently, regulation plays a significant role to make sure the process of information disclosure and reinforce an effective market environment. In the article, he also explained the economies of scale in monitoring. Because of the nature of financial contracts between financial firms and their customers there is a need for continuous monitoring of the behaviour of financial firms. Regulatory agencies should monitor the financial firms in the name of consumers, since regulatory agencies are more effective and cost less in monitoring financial firms. After financial crisis 2008 Almost all of the financial regulation agency aim to maintain the stability of the financial market and consumers confidence; however, the change of real market circumstance seems faster than policy-makers precautionary measures. According to a speech, The financial crisis and the future of financial regulation[10] from Adair Turner, the Chairman of the FSA, he explained the main reason why this extreme crisis happened is the interaction between macroeconomic imbalances and the fast development in financial market which happened last ten years. In his speech, since the decline of the real risk free rates of interest, such as government bonds, credit extension was got a chance of dramatic growth especially in residential industry with deteriorated credit standards. Moreover, a desire to find a substitute for government bonds among investors who want to gain as much as possible spread above the risk-free rate was exploded. Sophisticated investment banks created a new kind of securitized credit instruments and it boomed so quickly, but unfortunately, like Lord Turner said: Not all innovation is equally useful, it collapsed since the investors became irrational. To reduce the adverse impact in economy, rebuild th e investor confidence and avoid future crisis, he pointed several strategies that regulators may concentrate on improving the regulation system. He argued that financial system should modify originate and distribute model which refer to securitized credit model easier to be understood, and more transparent to end investors. He also suggested that a new regime for capital adequacy and liquidity is necessary to lower the possibility of future crisis. In the end of his speech, he emphasized that financial regulation should always ensure that financial activities are regulated on the basis of their economic substance instead of their legal form. In the Turner Review[11] published by FSA in March 2009, there are more specific approaches about banking supervision that FSA plans to change and introduce. All the recommends can be highly summarized to be seven key measures as follow: Increasing the quantity and quality of bank capital. Significant increases in trading book capital: and the need for fundamental review. Avoiding procyclicality in Basel 2 implementation. Creating counter-cyclical capital buffers. Offsetting procyclicaality in published accounts. A gross leverage ratio backstop. Containing liquidity risks: in individual banks and at the systemic level. (FSA, 2009) After the financial crisis happened, FSA has been undertaking massive actions to improve regulation system. For example, according to FSA Annual Report 2008/09[12], the Banking Act 2009 is mainly able to resolve default problem and strengthen financial stability; as a result, a new bank insolvency procedure was introduced. A statement from FSA about Banking Act 2009 from FSA in July 2009 claimed that the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) can not only pay compensation to eligible customers of a financial firm if that firm including deposit takers is unable, or likely to be unable, to pay claims against it but also can also be required to contribute to the costs arising from the actions taken under the SRR.[13] In addition, FSA increased the general depositor protection limit from  £35,000 to  £50,000 per person per deposit-taking institution which will cover most of retail deposits in October 2008. In the aspect of supervising firms capital adequacy, FSA made efforts to let firms which have most impact know essential controls and standards by Dear CEO letter. Closely cooperated with EU and global regulation, FSA played an important role in G20 London Summit in April 2009, which focused on the future priorities for global financial regulation, and Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Many recommendations, which became detailed international agreements, were from FSA. According to FSA Business Plan 2009/10[14], the FSA will intensively focus on the competence of Significant Influence Functions (SIF) individuals in high-impact firms. The Plan announced five core improvements that FSA will be focus on, which included an upgraded Training and Competence (TC) scheme for relationship-management supervisors, a new tenure policy (it will provide a framework for the minimum and maximum time a supervisor should manage a firm). My view in current UKs financial supervisory system During the accumulation of the knowledge of the history about the development of UKs financial regulation and the causes of financial crisis 2008, I find it is a process that the financial regulation continuously suits the changeable financial services industry, financial regulations solutions seem behind a certain innovations in financial market which has already begun cause negative effects in the whole economy. Financial crisis 2008 is evidence to prove that if financial regulation does not detect potential problems in a certain financial innovation and does not make adjustment promptly, a new crisis would be inevitably and it would cost a lot to correct the system along the right track. Therefore, an important lesson from crisis 2008 is financial regulation should always pay close attention to the moving direction of the market and fully analyses a financial innovation. A suggestion in my point of view is that financial regulation may has legislative to investigate and estimate p otential risk within a new financial product before it begin it to sell, and this procedure may require close cooperation with related financial institution. On the other hand, financial crisis 2008 make regulators intensively focus on risk-based analysis especially in banking or like-banking institutions, but it should not equal to discourage financial innovation. Almost all the financial derivatives contain risk, while, as long as regulators estimate it appropriately, these new financial products that contained huge intelligence can benefit consumers. Conclusion Being a single financial regulator in United Kingdom, Financial Services Authority has powers which was given by Financial Services and Market Act (FSMA) to supervise Britain financial industry. Demand for such kind of regulation can be observed in history and economic perspectives. Financial crisis 2008 as a prelude to FSA reinforces its system, supervision in banking industry become more intensively. The crisis also gave regulators a lesson that it is necessary to establish a balance between surpluses and deficits on the global level in the long-term, in addition, prudential analysis should be in a more effective way in order to reduce systematic risk. Finally, not just FSA, but all the other financial regulations should cooperate closely to build a more stable global financial system and avoid future crisis. Word Count: 2564/2500 Reference: Consumer awareness of the FSA and financial regulation, Consumer Research 80, FSA, 2009 Heffernan, S. (2007). Modern banking. John Wiley Sons, Ltd, pp.200-242 Blair et al, Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, pp. 1-16 Heffernan, S. (2007). Modern banking. John Wiley Sons, Ltd, pp. 231-232 FSA, 2005, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/About/Who/History/index.shtml Heffernan, S. (2007). Modern banking. John Wiley Sons, Ltd, pp. 235-237 THE EU FINANCIAL SERVICES ACTION PLAN: A GUIDE, 31 July 2003, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/other/fsap_guide.pdf Rider, Abrams and Ashe, Guide to Financial Services Regulation, pp. 1-26 The Economic Rationale for Financial Regulation, FSA Occasional Paper Series 1, April 1999, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/occpapers/OP01.pdf The financial crisis and the future of financial regulation, Speech by Adair Turner, The Economists Inaugural City Lecture, 21 January 2009 The Turner Review: A regulatory response to the global banking crisis, FSA, March 2009, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/other/turner_review.pdf FSA Annual Report 2008/09, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Library/Corporate/Annual/ar08_09.shtml Policy Statement 09/11, Banking and compensation reform, FSA, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/policy/ps09_11.pdf FSA Business Plan 2009/10, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Library/Corporate/Plan/bp2009.shtml Consumer awareness of the FSA and financial regulation, Consumer Research 80, FSA, 2009 Heffernan, S. (2007). Modern banking. John Wiley Sons, Ltd, pp.200-242 Blair et al, Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, pp. 1-16 Heffernan, S. (2007). Modern banking. John Wiley Sons, Ltd, pp. 231-232 FSA, 2005, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/About/Who/History/index.shtml Heffernan, S. (2007). Modern banking. John Wiley Sons, Ltd, pp. 235-237 THE EU FINANCIAL SERVICES ACTION PLAN: A GUIDE, 31 July 2003, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/other/fsap_guide.pdf Rider, Abrams and Ashe, Guide to Financial Services Regulation, pp. 1-26 The Economic Rationale for Financial Regulation, FSA Occasional Paper Series 1, April 1999, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/occpapers/OP01.pdf The financial crisis and the future of financial regulation, Speech by Adair Turner, The Economists Inaugural City Lecture, 21 January 2009 The Turner Review: A regulatory response to the global banking crisis, FSA, March 2009, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/other/turner_review.pdf FSA Annual Report 2008/09, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Library/Corporate/Annual/ar08_09.shtml Policy Statement 09/11, Banking and compensation reform, FSA, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/policy/ps09_11.pdf FSA Business Plan 2009/10, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Library/Corporate/Plan/bp2009.shtml

Field Programmable Gate Array based Digital Module

Field Programmable Gate Array based Digital Module Field Programmable Gate Array based Digital Module for Laser Frequency Stabilization A.Rastogi1, N. Batra, S.De2, S.Panja and A. Sen Gupta Introduction Frequency stabilized lasers are a crucial part in variety of atom-photon experiments such as atomic spectroscopy [1], laser cooling [2], probing the excited states of atoms [3] etc. Depending on the application, a stability in bandwidth from few MHz to sub Hz maybe required. It is therefore, essential to stabilize the frequency of a laser source to an absolute reference. Atoms or ultra stable fabry- perot cavities are used for this purpose [4]. Such stabilization schemes require electronic feedback / servo loops that allow for a correction in laser frequency deviation. At CSIR-NPL, we are developing the first optical frequency standard in India with a single trapped Ytterbium ion (171Yb+). The project aims at trapping a single Yb ion in a Paul trap, laser cooling the ion to about mK temperatures for a precise frequency measurement of the ultranarrow octupole transition at a wavelength of 467 nm. The 171Yb+ frequency standard will require a simultaneous operation of five lasers for photoionization (399 nm), cooling (369 nm), repumping (935 nm and 760 nm) and probing the clock transition (467 nm) [5]. All the laser lights for our experiment would be produced from extended cavity diode lasers (ECDL) which drift in their frequencies due to environmental factors as temperature fluctuations and mechanical vibrations. Such drifting renders them unstable and hence, incorporating frequency stabilization systems becomes an essential requirement for precise frequency standards. In general a frequency stabilization of a laser, as for example using saturated ab sorption spectroscopy [6], requires the use of a frequency synthesizer for scanning and modulation of the laser frequency , lock-in amplifier for phase sensitive detection, low / high pass filters, and servo electronics for feeding control signals to the piezo / current terminals of the laser. Instead of procuring these analog modules for each of the lasers used in our experiment, we have taken an effort of developing them indigenously with an all digital control using field programmable gate array technology(FPGA). Hence, the functionality of all the hardware components can be embedded inside a single chip. In this paper, we present an FPGA based laser frequency stabilization design and show some preliminary results of the performance of the FPGA design modules. An active laser feedback control loop mainly consists of a lock-in amplifier (providing phase sensitive detection) and a PID controller. As mentioned earlier, the controller generates correction signals that drive either a piezo attached to the laser cavity (as in case of ECDL lasers) or a current so as to adjust the laser frequency. Using FPGAs the entire functionality of a laser frequency locking system can be implemented in a single chip with an area of few mm2 . Moreover, the truly concurrent nature of FPGA processing algorithms results in the FPGA design modules behaving like dedicated hardware circuits. Minimal use of hardware leads to lesser probability of picking up noise from the surroundings and also reduces cost. The FPGAs could always be reprogrammed to incorporate extra adders, multipliers, filters i.e. they provide re-configurability. FPGAs are programmed using hardware description languages (HDL) such as Verilog-HDL or VHDL. We have implemented the laser frequency locking modules using VHDL. A schematic of various VHDL design modules implementing a laser frequency locking setup is shown in Fig.1. In our module, the FPGA chip (Xilinx Spartan 6 XCSLX16) receives an input signal either from an atomic spectroscopy or from a fabry-perot cavity[4] [6] .As shown in Fig.1, the acousto-optic modulator (AOM) does amplitude modulations of the laser signal resulting in variations in the intensity of light at the photodetector output. This modulated signal at the photodiode output is the derivative of the laser absorption signal i.e. proportional to the slope of a resonant feature. At a resonant frequency, the derivative signal is zero and on both sides of resonance, the derivative signal is 180 degrees in phase. This signal is the input to the FPGA systemwhich is then digitised using a 12-bit A/D converter (AD7476) and then passed through a high pass filter component. High pass filtering extracts the high frequency modulated features from the input signal. The filtered signal then goes to the input of the lock-in amplifier component (that implements phase sensitive detection). The reference signal for the lock-in amplifier comes from a VHDL component that implements a square DDS generator. A phase shifted version of this reference signal can be used by the AOM to amplitude modulate the laser signal. The lock-in amplifier component demodulates the modulated photodiode signal by multiplying it with the reference signal followed by low pass filtering thereby generating what is called an error signal. The error signal contains information as to which side of resonance, the laser frequency is. This signal is then processed by a PID controller component. The control signals generated by the PID component adjust the laser piezo and current signals in such a way so as to ensure that the error signal is always zero (which corresponds to a resonant frequency).Many a times, it is needed to just scan over the complete laser spectrum or to zoom in on a particular spectral feature. In this case, the PID action is disabled and a slow triangular scan signal (generated by a scan generator component) is fed to the laser piezo.All signals coming out of the FPGA are converted into the analog form via 12-bit DAC (DAC121S101). Moreover, to aid in the flexible tuning of locking parameters such as the lock-in gain, PID parameters, modulation frequency and phase, scan amplitude and frequency ; we are working on developing a graphical user interface (GUI) that would allow easy access to and modification of the parameters values inside the FPGA registers. Figure 1: A schematic of an FPGA based closed loop laser frequency locking system. The experiment (atomic spectroscopy setup) and the electronic feedback servo (implemented using FPGA) are shown separately. On the right is shown the image of our FPGA development board with the Xilinx based FPGA chip at the centre. All the feedback components have been implemented as programmable VHDL modules . Results of Some of the VHDL design modules Operation of the individual VHDL modules as well as of the entire system as shown in Fig.1.have been verified, as for example, by observing the physical signals generated from the software implementation of lock-in amplifier, high pass filter , square DDS , scan generator etc. Here we are showing some of these results from our prototype setup. Function Generation:We have implemented the functional behaviour of a square DDS generator and a triangular generatorby developing VHDL components for them. The output of the square DDS module is used as a reference signal for the lock-in detection stage and a phase shifted version of the reference signal is used in the amplitude modulation of the laser frequency by the AOM. The output of the triangular generator is used as a scan signal that drives the laser piezo for observing the laser absorption spectra over a wide range of frequencies. The signals generated from these VHDL components are shown in Fig.2 (a-b). Figure 2 : (a) Shows a square wave of 20 KHz. This would be used as a reference signal for lock-in detection and for modulation by the AOM. (b) Shows a triangular scan of 10 Hz. This would be given to the laser piezo for scanning over a huge range of laser spectrum. (c) A sine wave of 100 Hz (red) was distorted by a high frequency pseudo random sequence resulting in a distorted signal (blue). The high pass filter module filters out the low frequencies and only high frequencies remain (green). For the response shown, the cut-off frequency was kept at 1 KHz. High Pass Filter:Our high pass filter implements a first order IIR digital filter. As shown in Fig.1.the high pass filtering is needed to extract the high frequency amplitude modulations of the photodiode signal superimposed over the slowly scanned doppler absorption profile. As a way of verifying the functionality of this component, a low frequency sine way (100 Hz) was added to a pseudo-random number sequence (10-bit maximal sequence) which was generated at 1 MHz. The result is a highly distorted sine wave comprising high frequency fluctuations superimposed over a slowly varying sine wave. When such a signal is passed through the high pass filter component, the slow sinusoid is removed and only the fast fluctuations appear at the filter output. The cut-off frequency determines the signal at the output. The high pass filtering is shown in Fig.2 (c). Lock -In Amplifier(Phase Sensitive Detector):Software implementation of a lock-in amplifier constitutes developing a binary multiplier in conjunction with a low pass filter. The binary multiplier multiplies an input signal with a reference signal The product is then passed to the low pass filter of a suitable cut-off frequency such that only the portion of the input signal that occurs at the reference frequency remain while the rest are filtered out. Moreover, the output of the lock-in amplifier (i.e. the low pass filtered signal) is directly proportional to the amplitude of the input signal and inversely proportional to the relative phase difference between the input and reference signals. Hence, for a given phase relationship, theoutput increases with increase in input signal amplitude. Similarly, for a fixed amplitude of input signal, the output is maximum when the reference and input signals are in phase (0 degrees) ; minimum when the two are out of phase (180 degrees) and averag es to zero when they are 90 degrees phase separated. In Fig. 3, we demonstrate the amplitude and phase dependence of a lock-in amplifier circuit whose behaviour we have implemented in VHDL. The input signal to this component was an internally generated sine wave (5 KHz) and the reference signal was a square wave (5 KHz). From Fig.3 (a) , it is clear that as the amplitude of input signal (red) increases, the output signal (blue) shifts in the upward direction. For very small input signals (near to zero) , the output is also close to zero. From Fig.3(b), it is clear that the outputs of the lock-in amplifier are equal and opposite for phase separation of 0 (blue) and 180 degrees (red) between the input and reference signals. Moreover, the output signal averages to zero (green) when the corresponding phase difference is 90 degrees. Figure 3 : (a),(b) and (c)show the dependence of the lock-in amplifier output (blue) upon the input signal (red). As the input signal amplitude increases from (a) to (c), the output level also shifts up(d) The mean of the lock-in amplifier is minimum when the phase difference between the reference signal and input is 180 degrees (red), maximum when the two are in phase (blue) and lies in the middle of the two extremes when the phase difference is 90 degrees (green). Implementation of Frequency Locking Using Simulated Atomic Spectroscopy Reference frequency from the laser driven atomic spectroscopy is currently not available due to in- availability of the laser.Therefore, to overcome this practical situation and test the FPGA based frequency locking modules,we describe an elegent simulation scheme for testing the closed loop FPGA based frequency control by simulating the atomic spectroscopy experiment described in [6] inside the FPGA chip itself. Essentially, inside the FPGA chip , there would be two main modules : (1) An experiment module that simulates a saturated absorption spectroscopy setup and (2) A feedback module that implements lock-in detection and a PID control action. The experiment module would include three components : A laser piezo scan / control block that receives a voltage at its input and generates a frequency as a predetermined function of that voltage ; an atomic spectroscopy block which generates a derivative intensity profile as a function of the frequency from the piezo block . This in effect results in a derivative feature as a function of the input voltage to the piezo block. In addition , there is a modulation block that mimics an AOM driver. The block modulates the derivative signal in a certain algorithm such that the positive and negative cycles of the derivative signal are 180 degrees out of phase. The modulated signal then goes to the feedback block. The functions for voltage to frequency conversion and for frequency to derivative intensity conversion can be carefully chosen such that over one complete scan cycle , the derivative is zero at a particular voltage. The frequency corresponding to this voltage is the desired freque ncy and the feedback loop should effectively generate a voltage corresponding to this frequency by making the error signal zero. In this sense, the feedback module includes the basic components as high pass filter (for removing the slow doppler profile features from the modulated derivative signal) , lock-in amplifier (for phase sensitive demodulation of the derivative signal thereby giving an error signal) , a PID controller loop that fixes the error signal to zero and a scan generator that is used for observing the derivative over a complete scan range. Also, the reference signal for lock-in detection and the modulation signal from the AOM block are generated from a square DDS (implemented inside the feedback module). The output of the feedback module is either a scan voltage or a PID control voltage. In either case, the voltage signal goes to the piezo component of the experiment module. In this way, a closed feedback scheme is achieved as shown in Fig.4 At the time of writing th is paper, the experimental module has been successfully implemented and we are able to simulate both the scan and lock conditions. In the scan mode, PID loop is disabled and the error signal is observed over a defined sweep span. Under the locking condition, the PID loop is enabled which pins the error signal down to the zero value. In this way, the system gets locked to the frequency corresponding to zero error voltage. After the first order confirmation of frequency locking , we next plan to charcterise the lock quality , add facilities of scan offset and error signal offset to the existing simulation scheme as well as introduce noise into the system . Figure 4 :(Left) A closed loop scheme simulating an atomic spectroscopy experimental setup and a feedback system both implemented inside the FPGA chip. (Right) A falling edge of scan signal (blue) with an error signal (red) simulating a spectroscopic feature is shown. A mirror image of the feature is observed on the rising scan edge . When in lock mode, the error signal falls flat to zero voltage (green) demonstrating that the system gets locked to a particular frequency. Conclusion We have developed an all digital laser frequency stabilization module using field programmable gate array technology as against traditional bulky and expensive analog controllers. The VHDL design modules developed, imitate the functionality of typical hardware electronics used in a laser frequency locking system. The design modules were tested both individually as well as end to end through different testing methodologies. Some of the results were presented in this paper.Also, before incorporating the design modules into locking an actual laser, we have developed a scheme that simulates an entire atomic spectroscopy experiment with an electronic feedback system, both implemented inside the FPGA chip. We have successfully shown the frequency locking action of our feedback modules through this scheme and plan to test them more rigorously by making enhancements in the existing simulation scheme. Acknowledgement S. De acknowledges support from Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences (BRNS) for funding this project under the project code :34/14/19/2014-BRNS/0309. References [1] K.B. Mac Adam, A Steinbach and C. Wiemann, Am. J. Phys. 60 , 1098 (1992). [2] D. J. Wineland and H. Dehmelt,Bull. Am. Phys. Soc.20, 637 (1975). [3] Chien-Nan Liu, Toru Morishita and Shinichi Watanabe, 2009 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 194 032014. [4] W. Z. Zhao, J. E. Simsarian, L. A. Orozco, and G. D. Sprouse, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 69, 3737(1998). [5] S. De, N. Batra, S. Chakraborty, S. Panja, A. Sen Gupta, .Current Science 106, 1348 (2014). [6] Hall,J.L.;Hollberg,L.;Baer,T.;Robinson,H.G., ApPhL,39,680 (1981).

Custom Written Term Papers: Othello’s Feminine Roles :: Othello essays

Othello’s Feminine Roles  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   The audience finds within the Shakespearean tragic drama Othello several female characters who figure into the plot of the play. Their roles are varied and their lives end tragically.    Alvin Kernan’s â€Å"Othello: an Introduction† explains Desdemona’s role as a model of faith and chastity for the protagonist who converts to a belief in her after her death:    His willingness to speak of what he has done – in contrast to Iago’s sullen silence – is a willingness to recognize the meaning of Desdemona’s faith and chastity, to acknowledge that innocence and love do exist, and that therefore The City can stand, though his life is required to validate the truth and justice on which it is built. (81)    In the volume Shakespeare and Tragedy John Bayley explains the roles of the two main women characters in the play:    Even the risk of alienating the onlooker from the tragic action produces a corresponding gain: that action and behaviour remain in the play perennially controversial, and the focus of sexual and social awareness sharp and clear. In a production today, the implications of this are usually more interesting than the actual intrigue can be, and a lot of weight is usually put on Emilia’s role as a figure of common sense and common humanity, correcting the romantic excesses of the lovers. [. . .] But no figure in these three tragedies has such a symbolically positional status. Besides, Emilia, for all her virtues, has a stupidity and lack of imagination comparable in its own way to that of her husband; while her views on the sex war, from the feminine angle, are as pungent as his. Certainly the role of women is important, but it is Desdemona alone who, because of her love, can remain unconscious of the tragedy/comedy element, as she does of the polarity between sex and love. (218)    At the outset of the play Iago persuades the rejected suitor of Desdemona, Roderigo, to accompany him to the home of Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, in the middle of the night. Once there the two awaken the senator with loud shouts about his daughter’s elopement with Othello. This is the initial reference to the role of women in the play – the role of wife. In response to the noise and Iago’s vulgar descriptions of Desdemona’s involvement with the general, Brabantio arises from bed.

An Analysis of the Term Actually Incurred in Section 11(a) of Income Tax Action :: Accounting Education Finances Taxes Essays

An Analysis of the Term Actually Incurred in Section 11(a) of Income Tax Action Act No. 58 of 1962 1.SYNOPSIS Generally Accepted Accounting Practice includes statement AC000: Framework for the preparation and presentation of financial statements. This sets out broad and definitive rules governing the recognition of liabilities and income and expenditure in financial statements. Specifically the following paragraphs need to be considered: Recognition of liabilities: 91. A liability is recognised in the balance sheet when it is probable that an outflow of resources embodying economic benefits will result from the settlement of a present obligation and the amount at which the settlement will take place can be measured reliably... Recognition of expenses: 94. Expenses are recognised in the income statement when a decrease in future economic benefits related to a decrease in an asset or an increase of a liability has arisen that can be measured reliably. This means in effect that recognition of expenses occurs simultaneously with the recognition of an increase or a decrease in assets 95. Expenses are recognised in the income statement on the basis of a direct association between the costs incurred and the and the earning of specific items of income. This process, commonly referred to as the matching of costs with revenues, involves the simultaneous or combined recognition of revenues and expenses that result directly and jointly from the same transaction or other events; The fisc takes little notice of these rules when it comes to the recognition of expenditure for the purposes of taxation. It is the part of these rules that govern the general deduction provision that this report will examine. Section 11(a) of the South African Income Tax Act No. 58 of 1962 (as amended) reads as follows: 11. General deductions allowed in the determination of taxable income.- For the purpose of determining the taxable income derived by any person from the carrying on of any trade within the Republic, there shall be allowed as deductions from the income of such person so derived- (a) expenditure and losses actually incurred in the Republic in the production of the income, provided such expenditure and losses are not of a capital nature. The section defines the conditions that must be met for expenditure and losses to be allowed as deductions from income. The expenditure or losses must have been: Actu ssme nt In the Republic of South Africa. In the production of the income. Such expenditure or losses must not be of a capital nature. The section has to be read together with s23(g) 23. Deductions not allowed in the determination of taxable income.- No deductions shall be made in respect of any moneys, claimed as a deduction from trade, to the extent to which such monies

Essay on Eating Disorder - Anorexia Nervosa :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

Anorexia Nervosa There may be murmurs about that girl who only fixes herself a salad with only vinegar at dining services or suspicious glances at someone who spends 45 minutes on the treadmill and then switches to the stair stepper at the rec. On-campus eating disorders are talked about everywhere and yet are not really talked about at all. There is observation, concern, and gossip, but hushed conversation and larger scale efforts to help and change never seem to earn public attention. There is this girl that I grew up and graduated with. I talked to her almost everyday at school, but we were never that close. I never saw much of her over the summer except when she was out running after a two to three hour softball practice. At my younger sister's volleyball game about a month or two ago, I saw this girl. She was so thin it was almost disgusting. Her skin was pale, her hair was thin, and I could see her ribs through her shirt. She went from looking healthy and physically fit to looking sick and fragile. This is why I chose this topic. People need to pay more attention to this disease. Anorexics are literally dying to be thin. Most of you probably already know what anorexia is, however in case you don't anorexia is basically a disease involving self-starvation. Anorexia victims have a very low "ideal" weight. It might begin as a normal diet carried to extremes, reducing their food intake to a bare minimum. Rules are made of how much food they can eat in one day and how much exercise is required after eating certain amounts of food. With anorexia, there is a strong almost overwhelming fear of putting on weight and they are preoccupied with the way that their bodies look. Anorexia sometimes involves use of laxatives, diet pills, or self-induced vomiting to lose or to keep weight off (http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/diseases/facts/anorexianervosa.htm). Anorexics may show symptoms such as extreme weight loss for no medical reason. Also, many deny their hunger, chew excessively, choosing low calorie foods and exercising excessively (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health). Anorexics do all of those things to become thin, when in reality, it makes your body better at storing fat rather than burning it. Starving yourself to lose weight is not beautiful in any way. Starved bodies ache all of the time. Essay on Eating Disorder - Anorexia Nervosa :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics Anorexia Nervosa There may be murmurs about that girl who only fixes herself a salad with only vinegar at dining services or suspicious glances at someone who spends 45 minutes on the treadmill and then switches to the stair stepper at the rec. On-campus eating disorders are talked about everywhere and yet are not really talked about at all. There is observation, concern, and gossip, but hushed conversation and larger scale efforts to help and change never seem to earn public attention. There is this girl that I grew up and graduated with. I talked to her almost everyday at school, but we were never that close. I never saw much of her over the summer except when she was out running after a two to three hour softball practice. At my younger sister's volleyball game about a month or two ago, I saw this girl. She was so thin it was almost disgusting. Her skin was pale, her hair was thin, and I could see her ribs through her shirt. She went from looking healthy and physically fit to looking sick and fragile. This is why I chose this topic. People need to pay more attention to this disease. Anorexics are literally dying to be thin. Most of you probably already know what anorexia is, however in case you don't anorexia is basically a disease involving self-starvation. Anorexia victims have a very low "ideal" weight. It might begin as a normal diet carried to extremes, reducing their food intake to a bare minimum. Rules are made of how much food they can eat in one day and how much exercise is required after eating certain amounts of food. With anorexia, there is a strong almost overwhelming fear of putting on weight and they are preoccupied with the way that their bodies look. Anorexia sometimes involves use of laxatives, diet pills, or self-induced vomiting to lose or to keep weight off (http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/diseases/facts/anorexianervosa.htm). Anorexics may show symptoms such as extreme weight loss for no medical reason. Also, many deny their hunger, chew excessively, choosing low calorie foods and exercising excessively (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health). Anorexics do all of those things to become thin, when in reality, it makes your body better at storing fat rather than burning it. Starving yourself to lose weight is not beautiful in any way. Starved bodies ache all of the time.

Goal formulation statement Essay

Goals are developed from the SWOT analysis. This is not a wishful thinking. Goals describe objectives that are specific with respect to magnitude and time. A goal is a realistic, measurable, time-dated target of accomplishment in the future. Why goal formulation so important thing for strategic planning? Strategic planning is a process that determines the future of organization. Goal formulation determines resource allocation needed. Having a proven process for strategic planning and goal formulation makes the effort more efficient. This assures that a strategic plan will provide a frame that will shape a company’s future. Goals formulation converts the company’s mission, objectives, strategic vision to specific performance targets, something the company’s progress can be determined. All goals must be stated in quantifiable or measurable terms, contain a deadline for achievement. Let’s consider a goal formulation process in terms of mobile restaurant business with food to-go, which is popular in the United States but still not presented here in Kazakhstan. Worldwide crisis gave a way to this specific business where not only professionals – chief cooks that has been fired or lost their business due to being unprofitable – even simple ex-office clerk who lost job during recession can run it. Cooks prepare and sell food right on the street where truck parked. The main goal of every business is to generate profit. However, the goals of every business change, depending on the type of industry they are in, the demands of the market, the current condition of the market. To be specific  When setting business goals, entrepreneur should keep in mind that specificity is really important to visualize exactly how the end result would be. For example:† Generate sales of $ 500 000 after running my mobile restaurant entity for year† is more specific goal, than simple â€Å"I want to be rich†. Then, one more specific goal is how much â€Å"branches† with me – â€Å"trucks†, I wish to have after a specific number of years, the exact number of employees after a year, the exact number of customers I regularly have on a daily basis. To be measurable This aspect of goal formulation is tied up with specificity. I need to have a unit of measurement to determine how close I am to my goals. For example, during measuring financial status, I need to measure sales, expenses per day. To be Attainable A good approach is to divide a huge goal into smaller objectives to help entrepreneur achieve through smaller steps. Setting realistic goals, based on personal capability, the current workforce and the resources available in the company. To be Realistic  To know how to set right goals, I have to check current capabilities and resources first, check how well the business is doing and do a thorough evaluation before setting business goals. For example, I can check how many customers I have, how many total sales generate per day, then make goal formulation on the daily basis. I have to be careful about the current situation on the market, as well as the demand for particular product service. Another thing is to create marketing scheme, which helps make goals more realistic. To be â€Å"Time-bound† Business goes on as long as I have enough resources and manpower to sustain it. This is a ideal marketing to set goals on a daily, monthly, quarterly and yearly basis. I suppose setting huge goals in a short interval of time can lead to unreal and unattainable results, still setting small goals over a long period of time can lead to delay and wastage. Set task and use enough time for accomplishment for business to grow. Business plan includes goals formulation in its first part. This is really important for businessman, especially if he seeks an investor. It’s extremely significant to look narrowly at goals of the business over at least one full year. Entrepreneur should do a monthly review of business to identify which goals have been accomplished. After year, recheck and adjust everything. A business will go on to progress as long as there are available goals and objectives. Even if business doing well, setting new goals and working with the trends must take place.

Mind and Body, Dualism vs Neuroscience Essay

The idea of the human beings having a soul, spirit or mind has long been used; although religions started using it four thousand years ago for different reasons, some people that simply had a thirst for knowledge started seeking a true answer to this question not that long ago. Indeed, this question has seriously been thought about and logically questioned in the last 400 years starting with Descartes who thought that human beings do have an immaterial mind (mind and body dualism). However, in the face of recent discoveries in neuroscience, it is not possible to maintain the theory of mind and body dualism as neuroscience has proved the brain to be the seat of mental faculties that are believed by dualist to come from the mind. First of all let us talk about mind body dualism in order to fully understand why it is now an obsolete theory. Dualists believe that the mind is non-physical and is separate from the brain which is physical. Moreover, they see the brain to be simply the location of where the mind operates (where the mind interacts with the physical world). Also, the body itself (brain included) is thought to have a different nature than that of the mind as one is physical and the other isn’t. On the other hand, we have physicalism. Physicalists think that everything that exists is physical and therefor what we call the mind does not exist as it is not physical. Descartes’ arguments for his mind and body dualism theory are however convincing if we ignore today’s recent discoveries and concentrate on philosophical reasoning; his first argument is that you can doubt everything in the material world but you cannot doubt that you are a thinking thing and exist. Let me explain this further: one of Descartes’ experiments was called Meditations. In his meditations he started assuming (for the purpose of his experiment and not in reality) that there was an evil genius that would deceive him on everything he though was true. Therefor everything he wasn’t absolutely sure was true had to be considered as untrue because he did not want to build up logic or reasoning on a weak foundation. In this way of thinking, he managed to doubt that the world, his hands, his body, and everything in the physical world was not true (because he would consider that the evil genius could make him think that he actually saw things that didn’t really exist). However, one thing could not be doubt, at this precise moment and since his birth, Descartes was thinking†¦ This simple truth could not be doubted; he had a mind and was using it to think. Descartes’ concluded that because one could be doubt and the other not, mind and body were of different nature. One of his more simple arguments, which is called the divisibility argument, is that as physical things such as bones, flesh, brain tissues and etc. occupy space in the physical world; thought-like things such as emotions, thoughts and the mind as a whole do not, and therefore are not physical. Moreover, Descartes has another argument called the conceivability argument which states that a human being can exists as a thinking things without his extended (physical) body existing (a mind or soul without a body) and that everything that can be conceived is logically possible. Therefor if it is logically possible that X exist without Y, then X is not identical with Y. Now that a background of information on mind and body dualism has been set, let us see why and how recent discoveries in neuroscience make it impossible to maintain dualism as a theory. The way I see things, neuroscience has provided evidences that we do not need to suppose the existence of an immaterial mind to explain life and behavior of human beings and also has proven that a lot of the mental faculties dualist attributed to the mind are in fact attributed to the brain. Contemporary neuroscience has greatly improved our understanding of the brain’s functioning; new imaging techniques enables scientists visualize the human brain in action and produces images that define the brain regions responsible for attention, memory, and emotion. The latter is the one of most interest in the present debate as emotions are believed to come from the mind. Emotional responses have been proved to be centralized in the limbic system. In this system we may find the amygdala and the hippocampus which are the primary areas managing emotions. Then there is the element of decision making. Any dualist would attribute the element of decision making or free will to the mind, however neuroimaging allows us to detect some decisions up to 10 seconds before the actual decision is taken by the individual with monitoring of brain activity (CAT, MRI or PET scans for example). This questions dualism because as dualists consider the mind to be immaterial, a good question is raised: how can the mind (immaterial) which supposedly makes the decision, be observed and predicted with material tools? Furthermore, a property of mind according to dualists is â€Å"behaviour†. Research studying victims of brain damage have found correlation between lost faculties or behavioural abnormalities and changes and localized damage in the brain. Phineas Gage is often the best example for this argument. Gage survived an iron rod that destroyed part of his left frontal lobe but suffered from severe personality change. It is noteworthy to specify that the personality change was big enough that his friend would no longer see him as Phineas Gage but as someone else. Even though Descartes’ philosophical reasoning is worth considering, contemporary neuroscience shows on different levels that what is believed to be an immaterial mind is actually the physical brain. Following Descartes’ own logic, it is necessary to consider all doubtful knowledge as false and start building from information that are certain â€Å"in order to establish anything firm and lasting in sciences† (Descartes, Meditation I). This being said, contemporary neuroscience is based on experimental proofs while dualism is based on theoretical thinking. However, neuroscience has not convinced everyone, where do you stand?