The Social Age brings with it a new approach to communication and collaboration across boundaries using technology. As with any new technology, there are great benefits and plenty of challenges as well.

One of the advantages for businesses is the ease of interacting with a large audience very quickly. But this also provides the temptation to react when negative things are written and posted about the company.

In Chapter 8 you read about Coca-Cola’s social media guidelines. One of the company’s guidelines is to avoid the temptation to react in defense of the company in social media spaces. However, not all companies have such policies, especially smaller ones.

Use Strayer’s library or the Internet to search for an example of when someone that represented a company or was known to be affiliated with a company reacted to something negative posted about the company.

• In the discussion, describe the scenario and what happened as a result. If you were able to recreate this situation, what would you do differently? Why? Is there ever an instance where you should defend a company you work for? What if it is a company you own? Explain.

for this discussion we will be exploring what we learned from our guest speakers. For your participation in this discussion, you are required to:

1. Post an initial 2-3 paragraph post by Saturday that provides a brief overview of one of our guest speaker presentations
   1. FBI Special Agent Jeremy Tarwater, and Forensic Accountant Ben McDonnell
   2. Deputy District Attorney Tiffany Scott and Forensic Accountant Kevin Boyne
   3. Special Agent Mousa Rahib, IRS Criminal Investigations
   4. Bonus presentation video by former prosecutor and White Collar Crime attorney – Phil Parrott

For your initial post, please focus on the following:

1. 1. Briefly, what the speaker said, examples given, advice given, etc.
   2. Describe any “take-aways” you got from the speaker. Did anything surprise you? Did anything move you? Did anything inspire you?
   3. Describe your reactions to the speaker and how they relate to this class and/or to the accounting profession.

in your first and second post in which you compare the speaker you initially chose with one of the other guest presentations, commenting and comparing the two presentations, using the guidelines above. For this post, focus on additional learning and observations and avoid repeating content from your first post. During the remainder of the discussion, please react to and interact with your classmates and their observations.

Finally, throughout the discussion, please post at least three thoughtful and substantive responses to fellow classmate posts, with each response related to a different speaker, if possible. I would like these responses to your classmates to focus on comparing and contrasting the speakers and what you learned from them.

here i will attach the three student post that you need to respond too

1) Guest speaker Special Agent Mousa Rahib’s presentation was incredibly insightful and opened my eyes to new ways one can use their accounting background to contribute to society. Special Agent Rahib himself is an SDSU alumni with a degree in Finance and joined the IRS straight out of college. He discussed how to get into a career as a special agent with the IRS including requirements and training (at the Federal Law Enforcement Center in Georgia), along with the generous benefits and pay ranges. I personally would like to work in government in the future, particularly because of the benefits Special Agent Rahib described. It is hard to find careers that offer pension and great retirement packages. One of the primary reasons I majored in accounting was to find job security so it would be interesting to apply my knowledge and experience in accounting to this or related career fields in fraud investigation. One of the more interesting parts of the presentation was how important it is in an investigation to “follow every dollar”. Following the money is how people like Special Agent Rahib and his team combat perpetrators who are involved in tax fraud, terrorism, drugs, or human trafficking. The IRS has and will continue to have a lot on their hands with the rampant fraud of PPP loans. Yet they can trace where money went to help provide that loans were not spent on real businesses but rather on a lavish lifestyle (houses in Mexico, gambling, etc.). A current cas Links to an external site. that Special Agent Rahib worked on heavily relied on his department to “follow the money” and eventually bring down a massage parlor prostitution ring. Their years of investigation led them to charge a former San Diego Vice Detective with interstate trafficking, racketeering and wire fraud. From this case it was hard for those accused to deny their guilt because the money did not lie. It reminded me of other high-profile convictions and how forensic accounting became a way to convict people conducting illegal activities. For example, accountant Frank J. Wilson (and the department that would later become the IRS) brought down Al Capone by uncovering journal entries. From this famous example, and the cases Special Agent Rahib mentioned, it is inspiring to learn how applying accounting skills and knowledge can help lead to justice. These cases are not just uncovering white collar crime. Beyond the money, real lives are at stake.I also enjoyed hearing more about Special Agent Rahib’s take on the importance of interviews and how he conducts them. As he mentions, even when talking with prospective perpetrators, he does not consider them “interrogations” but rather still just interviews. His main goal during them is to create a rapport. It was enlightening to hear how the interview tactics we learned in class can be used in real cases and how key they are in investigations. The interviews can lead to some of source evidence that is gathered and are significant to the path of the case. I believe this also reinforces a key takeaway not only for the presentation, but for the class itself – it is important to look beyond the numbers. Numbers are just numbers until people like accountants (or special agents) bring meaning and context to them. Credit card transactions at a massage parlor could just be seen as that – money coming from a card going to a business. Yet it was the context of how that massage parlor hired and took advantage of their employees that turns that business transaction into something illegal. The numbers and paper trail just help prove that it happened.

2) The presentation on complex financial crimes by Jeremy Tarwater and Ben McDonnell was really informational and gave us an insight on the FBI’s role in combating major white collar crime. They touched base on the role of the FBI in any investigations and the way that they work through to prosecution. Jeremy went in depth and gave us an insight on what responsibilities he has as an FBI agent. He highlighted 5 main components which were investigate, examine, collaborate, communicate, and testifying. When an agent needs to investigate they do case planning, developing financial profiles of individuals, and participating in the gathering of evidence. When it comes to examining they conduct forensic financial analyses of business, they identify and trace funding sources and also utilize computer software and database management systems to conduct in depth examinations. When they collaborate they conduct investigations with private industries and government agency partners and even have to testify as a fact or expert witness in judicial proceedings. They also presented some case studies on some major money laundering schemes that some fraudsters were doing and walked us through the whole investigative process on how this came to their radar all the way to the arrest they made. I think that when I think of an FBI agent, I automatically think of most TV shows, but having both speakers really showed us a more real aspect to the job that they do and all of the different components that goes into their day to day. I also found it really interesting when he went into detail on how one of the biggest cases he worked on was handled. It was crazy to see how intricate these cases can get, and how careful and calculated every single move must be. It was also really inspiring to see how involved a forensic accountant can be when it comes to handling an investigation. I feel like we all did not think that a forensic accountant would get to be out on the field, and be this involved outside of having to investigate finances and track where the money is coming and going. Ben really opened up a whole new career that I did not even know I was truly interested in potentially pursuing. All in all I really enjoyed their presentation and found all of the information that they presented us with very informative and eye opening. Like I mentioned it was very interesting to see how the accounting profession ties into something as important as a criminal investigation. I really appreciated them walking us through all of the processes of an investigation and giving us an insight on how they are handled. I also really liked that they included an actual video of the arrest. I know that when we think of a crime the first thing that comes to mind is something as intense as murder or something of that nature but white collar crime is also very important for us to be on the lookout for. It was also really refreshing to see what we are able to do with accounting aside from a typical book keeper or auditor career.

3) First, in Tuesday’s class I got to learn interesting facts from our guest speaker who was FBI special agent Jeremy Tar water. The speaker Jeremy Tar water talked about the role of an FBI agent. He talked about the roles of the FBI that are assess allegations/tips/complaints, open investigation in conjunction with prosecution, gather evidence through various investigative techniques. I also got to learn from different Ponzi schemes examples that the guest speaker shared during class. From all the different Ponzi Schemes that the guest speaker went through, the one that was more interesting was the largest female that ran Ponzi scheme in the whole United States with the liquor license. Some advice that I got from the guest speaker was that for his job, they are always working in teams. Working with team members is always interesting because you sometimes learn from them. Working in a team helps a lot as well because you get advice from your teammates. Another piece of advice I got from the guest speaker was if anybody is trying to join the FBI, the best resource can be to become a CPA which can really help you out towards your career. Some “take-aways” I got from the guest speaker Jeremy Tar Water were the process of entering to become an FBI agent. The process of entering to become an FBI agent can be difficult, just like any other job. This job as an FBI agent requires a job application and requires exams as well. Most people that apply to become FBI agents do not get accepted by one little process that was not met. People applying can get approved on the process and can continue with the application process, but failing a requirement disqualifies you now. Something that caught my attention from the guest speaker as a takeaway was the fitness test. The fitness test can be the hardest part of the whole process. We were told by the guest speaker that not many applicants get to the fitness test. The fitness test requires so much work, and they time you for the whole test. If you do not meet a requirement like the mile run, you are disqualified now. Every part of the exam must be passed one hundred percent to continue with the process. This fitness test seems hard, but if you put down the effort you have nothing to worry about. Any candidate that is applying to be an FBI agent must have a clean record as well. This means no felonies, or any problems you had before with the government. I was most surprised about the starting salary for beginners as the top pay for agents that have five or more years as agents. Something that inspired me was that this career seemed interesting for me. I will need to think if this might be a good role for me or not. My reactions to the guest speaker and how he related to the class had several things in common. Another reaction for me was that Ponzi schemes is something that we learned in class; his job is to find fraud for the Ponzi schemes that are committed from other people. I could say that we have similar objectives like his career is having several cases that he must study. Our class is based on fraud, there were several cases that he went through, that we also learned the cases in class. A reaction I had towards the speaker was, he has been an agent for several years and I could tell he enjoys his job. As getting to know him, he really enjoys what he does every single day for a living. That is a reaction that I notice, it is important that any individual enjoys what they do for a living. He made me think if I should apply to this job. I will make further research and see if this is the right direction and I want to face.

The purpose of this project is that you learn to tackle a fairly challenging/realistic control
design problem. The project is to be an individual effort.
Problem description
The figure on the right1
shows a
simplified version of a magnetic
levitation system that can be built in a
laboratory, where a ball of magnetic
material is suspended by means of an
electromagnet whose current is
controlled by feedback from the
optically measured ball position. To
quote the excellent reference [1], “this
system has the basic ingredients of
systems constructed to levitate mass,
used in gyroscopes, accelerometers, and
fast trains”.
Several such examples are given in
many technical references, some of
which I have listed and are posted on
Blackboard.
In any case, the equation of motion of
the ball is
m

y

 ky

 mg  F( y,i) (1)
where m is the mass of the ball, y  0 is the vertical (downward) position of the ball measured
from a reference point (y = 0 when the ball is next to the coil), k is a viscous friction
coefficient, g is the gravitational acceleration constant, and F(y,i) is the force generated by
the electromagnet, i  0 being the coil current. The force
F( y,i)
is related to the energy
( , ) ( ) / 2
2 E y i  L y i
(where
L( y)
is the position-dependent coil inductance) stored in the coil
by
(2)
2 (1 / )
( , )
( , )
2
2
0
a y a
L i
y
E y i
F y i

 



where
L , a 0
are positive constants. This completes the system model if one controls the
position by manipulating the coil current directly. The equations for controlling the ball
position by varying the coil voltage v include the additional equation
  
( )
dt
d Li
v Ri (3)
(1 / ) (1 / )
0
2
0
dt
di
y a
L i
y
a y a
L i
Ri 



  , but this makes the problem harder (you can try this
if you want!), and so we will stick to designing the current and not the voltage.

1 This image extracted from http://www.fbk.com/pdfs/control/matlab.pdf
Control objective
1. It is desired to balance the ball at a certain position r > 0. Based on a linearized model
of the nonlinear plant, design a compensator Gc(s), the input to which is the error
e = r – y, and whose output is the coil current i, such that the specifications shown
below are all satisfied:
(i) When the parameters of the system are exactly known, the steady-state error
for a constant r must be ≤ 5%. You must not include an integrator as part of
your controller. You are free to choose any configuration, lead, lag, lead-lag,
feedforward, non-unity gain, whatever you wish, except that the system must
not be type 1.
(ii) Redesign your controller in the above part to meet the same specifications
even when the parameters are perturbed from their nominal values. In this
case, design the controller as an integral controller.
Numerical values for the parameters are as specified (taken from [1]):
m 0.1kg, k 0.001N / m /s, g 9.81m /s ,a 0.05, L0 0.01H
2
    
Tasks to be completed
(1) Find the steady-state value Iss of the current required to balance the ball at an arbitrary
desired equilibrium point y = r > 0.
(2) Linearize the nonlinear equations specified in the “problem description” section about
the desired operating point to obtain the linearized model
( )
( )
( )
i s
y s
G s p



where
ss y (t)  y(t)  r,i (t)  i(t)  I
 
denote the deviations of the position and current
respectively about their desired equilibrium values. Since the point
( , 0, )
ss y  r y

 i  I
is an equilibrium point, if we start there, we will stay there for ever (that’s what it means
to be an equilibrium point). Show that this equilibrium point in unstable, i.e., there are
poles of
G (s)
p
in the right-half complex s-plane. What this physically means is that if
the ball were moved by an infinitesimally small value from its equilibrium position (or
equivalently, if the current changed slightly from its equilibrium value), the ball will
move away from its equilibrium position. This is what necessitates the use of a
compensator, we want to “stabilize” this equilibrium point, along with possibly meeting
some nice (transient and steady-state) performance specifications.
(3) For your linearized plant
G (s)
p
, design a linear compensator
G (s)
c
to regulate the value
of the output to y = r = 0.05m.
A very important observation is that your linear compensator deals with the deviations
from the equilibrium values !! In other words, you are not designing the current i, but
the current
( ) .
ss i t  i  I

Do not use integral control!
Perform simulations in simulink with your compensator design to verify that the
specifications have been satisfied. Only your compensator should be linear, the plant
should be the nonlinear, in other words, you must design for a linear system, but
evaluate your controller’s performance on the nonlinear system. Plots should
indicate that the responses of the various signals are satisfactory.
(4) How far up from the equilibrium point can you move the ball (i.e, you will have to
specify an initial condition for the ball’s position, and its velocity, when you simulate the
system in simulink) and still return to the equilibrium position ? How far down ? If the
system were truly linear, what would these values be ?
(5) Using simulation, study the effect of perturbations of the mass m on your controller.
Using simulation, determine by how much you can change the mass and still have the
steady-state specs of SSE ≤ 5% met. Note that only the plant changes, the controller is
still the same (i.e., the one you designed for m = 0.1 kg).
(6) The previous part shows that when the parameters are perturbed, there is a steady-state
error. Redesign your control using integral control (PID) to get rid of the steady-state
error. Now by simulation, study the effect of mass perturbations on your controller.
(7) In none of the previous simulations did we impose realistic constraints on the control
magnitude. Suppose now that the control magnitude is limited to
| | 15 . i  I max
 A
Place
a limiter in your simulink model, and compare your results in steps (3) – (6) with what
you get when the control is saturated, i.e., whether or not the range of values by which
you can move the ball from the equilibrium position and/or the range of perturbations
has decreased. This will be the case if the transient performance specs you chose were
unrealistic, i.e., required a large control effort to meet the specs. Then, in the presence of
constraints on the control magnitude, your performance, as expected, should suffer.
(8) Discretize your compensator
G (s)
c
in (7) to get a discrete compensator
G (z)
c
. Choose
the sampling period T sufficiently small. The input to the discrete compensator must be
sampled, and the output of the compensator must be “held”, using a (zero-order hold)
ZOH. Only the compensator must be discretized, the control must still be applied to the
continuous-time nonlinear plant. Simulate the behavior of the closed-loop system, and
comment on the performance. How does the choice of sampling rate affect the
performance of the controller?
(9) (If time permits and for extra credit)
Look up papers/texts in the literature (for example [1,3]) on what nonlinear control
methods have been used (these are all based on the state-space approach, because there
is no transfer function if the system is nonlinear) in the control of magnetic levitation.
Can you at least simulate such a controller in simulink ?
You are expected to submit a typed report summarizing your work. You can use any
word processing system that you like. Typesetting systems such as LaTeX are especially
recommended. The lengths of the reports may vary, but I am expecting that you will
need at least 10 pages including simulink screenshots/plots and/or any matlab code.
Some components that your report should contain are:
(1) Abstract: This is an overview of the report, a miniature version of 50 words or so.
Someone reading the abstract should get a good idea of the problem tackled, what types of
techniques were used to solve it, and what sort of solution was found.
(2) Problem description: Present the problem you are attempting to solve. Give some
background. Explain why it is important or interesting.
(3) Solution of the problem: What techniques did you use to solve the problem? Did you use
a technique that we haven’t discussed in class? Explain in detail.
(4) Conclusions: Are the results reasonable? Can you improve the solution technique so as to
yield better results ? If so, explain.