At a nationwide travel agency, newly hired employees are classified as beginners (b). every six months the performance of each agent is reviewed. past records indicate that transitions through the ranks to intermediate (i) and qualified (q) are according to the following markov chain, where f indicates workers that were fired biq f b 45.4 0.15 q 0 0 1 0 f 0 0 0 1 (a) what fraction eventually become qualified? (b) what is the expected time until a beginner is fired or becomes qualified?

The federal reserve controls certain interest rates in the united states. investors often try to speculate as to whether the federal reserve will raise or lower rates and by how much. suppose a company conducts extensive interviews with financial analysts, and as a result, predicts that "thefed" will increase rates by an average of 0.25 percentage points every six months for the forseeable future. which type of equation could be used to model the predicted interest rates over the next several years, assuming no other significant changes? a) a linear equation b) a quadratic equation c) a polynomial equation d) an exponential equation