Discuss the role of friendship in Northanger Abbey. Essay -- Essays Pa

Discuss the role of friendship in Northanger Abbey. This essay will discuss the role of friendship in Northanger Abbey by examining the different types of friendships between Catherine Morland, Isabella Thorpe and Eleanor Tilney in the novel, alongside the significance of friendship to the plot and themes of the novel. Whether one can regard only true friendships as important will also be explored. In Northanger Abbey (NA) there are two main friendships, that of Catherine and Isabella and Catherine and Eleanor. These two friendships can be seen as a total contrast to one another. Catherine is very pleased to meet Isabella after being disappointed in not seeing Mr Tilney again. The narrator informs the reader that Catherine is fortunate in finding a friend as ‘Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.’ (p.18 NA). Isabella being the elder of the two has much more knowledge of fashionable society than Catherine and is, therefore, able to teach her a great deal about the expectations of society at that time. Catherine initially looks up to Isabella and considers herself lucky to have found such a good friend (p.19 NA). Isabella and Catherine’s friendship grows very quickly, unlike that of Catherine and Eleanor, which progresses much more gradually. Isabella is very free with her friendship, professing to do anything for her friends, even when she has known them only a short time. In contrast, Eleanor takes her time to get to know Catherine. She is far more sophisticated than Isabella and does not jump into a friendship without getting to know someone first. It is only during Catherine’s stay at Northanger Abbey that the two women become close friends. There are v... ...expecting nothing in return. (www.kettering.edu). Eleanor would not quite do anything for her friend. Even though she regarded Catherine as a true friend, Eleanor still puts family loyalty before Catherine even though she disagreed with her father. Nevertheless, both Isabella and Eleanor’s friendships in Northanger Abbey are crucial for developing and maturing Catherine’s character. Bibliography Austen, Jane. [1818] 1990 Northanger Abbey, ed. by John Davie, with an introduction by Terry Castle, Oxford World’s Classics, Oxford: Oxford University Press Regan, Stephen. Ed. 2001. The Nineteenth-Century Novel: A Critical Reader, London: Routledge Da Sousa Correa, Delia. Ed. 2000 The Nineteenth-Century Novel: Realisms, London: Routledge www.sparknotes.com/lit/northangerabbey [Accessed 21 January 2004] www.kettering.edu [Accessed 21 January 2004] Discuss the role of friendship in Northanger Abbey. Essay -- Essays Pa Discuss the role of friendship in Northanger Abbey. This essay will discuss the role of friendship in Northanger Abbey by examining the different types of friendships between Catherine Morland, Isabella Thorpe and Eleanor Tilney in the novel, alongside the significance of friendship to the plot and themes of the novel. Whether one can regard only true friendships as important will also be explored. In Northanger Abbey (NA) there are two main friendships, that of Catherine and Isabella and Catherine and Eleanor. These two friendships can be seen as a total contrast to one another. Catherine is very pleased to meet Isabella after being disappointed in not seeing Mr Tilney again. The narrator informs the reader that Catherine is fortunate in finding a friend as ‘Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.’ (p.18 NA). Isabella being the elder of the two has much more knowledge of fashionable society than Catherine and is, therefore, able to teach her a great deal about the expectations of society at that time. Catherine initially looks up to Isabella and considers herself lucky to have found such a good friend (p.19 NA). Isabella and Catherine’s friendship grows very quickly, unlike that of Catherine and Eleanor, which progresses much more gradually. Isabella is very free with her friendship, professing to do anything for her friends, even when she has known them only a short time. In contrast, Eleanor takes her time to get to know Catherine. She is far more sophisticated than Isabella and does not jump into a friendship without getting to know someone first. It is only during Catherine’s stay at Northanger Abbey that the two women become close friends. There are v... ...expecting nothing in return. (www.kettering.edu). Eleanor would not quite do anything for her friend. Even though she regarded Catherine as a true friend, Eleanor still puts family loyalty before Catherine even though she disagreed with her father. Nevertheless, both Isabella and Eleanor’s friendships in Northanger Abbey are crucial for developing and maturing Catherine’s character. Bibliography Austen, Jane. [1818] 1990 Northanger Abbey, ed. by John Davie, with an introduction by Terry Castle, Oxford World’s Classics, Oxford: Oxford University Press Regan, Stephen. Ed. 2001. The Nineteenth-Century Novel: A Critical Reader, London: Routledge Da Sousa Correa, Delia. Ed. 2000 The Nineteenth-Century Novel: Realisms, London: Routledge www.sparknotes.com/lit/northangerabbey [Accessed 21 January 2004] www.kettering.edu [Accessed 21 January 2004]

Non Communicable Diseases In Nepal Health And Social Care Essay

The magnitude of NCDs is still unknown in Nepal. The ministry of Health and Population, Government of Nepal has non yet formulated policy sing NCDs in the absence of grounds based determination. The survey aims to happen out the magnitude of the job of NCDs in Nepal, therefore directing the concerned governments and at policy degree.MethodsA cross sectional survey was performed to happen out infirmary based prevalence of NCDs, wherein 400 indoor patients of financial twelvemonth 2009 were indiscriminately selected from each of the 31 selected wellness establishments. It included all third degree wellness establishments of the regional and sub regional infirmaries, zonary infirmaries, specialised infirmaries of malignant neoplastic disease and bosom diseases and medical colleges. In instance of Kathmandu Valley one cardinal infirmary, one medical college and one private infirmary were indiscriminately selected. Indoor patients, 35 old ages or older were included in the survey. Univari ate analysis was carried out utilizing frequences and per centums.ConsequencesThe survey revealed that there were 36.5 % of the instances diagnosed with any of the four NCDs ( bosom diseases, COPD, diabetes and malignant neoplastic disease ) . Breast, neck and ovarian malignant neoplastic disease are the chief malignant neoplastic diseases at national degree accounting for 44 % of distribution. Majority of the instances were of HTN ( 47 % ) followed by CVA, CCF, IHD, RHD and MI. Females and advantaged Janajatis ( cultural group ) were found to be holding higher proportion of NCDs in their several groups.DecisionThe survey was able to uncover that Nepal is besides confronting the billowing load of non catching diseases similar to other developing states of south East Asia. Unless comprehensive and sector broad intercession schemes are planned and implemented efficaciously, this job is traveling to upsurge more. Sector wise recommendation was provided in the survey.Keywords: Non-communicable diseases, Nepal, Cross-sectional surveyBackgroundNon-communicable diseases ( NCDs ) refer to diseases or conditions that occur in, or are known to impact, persons over an extended period of clip and for which there are no known causative agents thatare transmitted from one affected single to another. [ 1 ] The hazard factors for many of the NCDs are associated with lifestyle related choicesenvironmental and familial factors. Tobacco usage, harmful usage of intoxicant, unhealthy diets ( high in salt, sugar and fat and low in fruits and veggies ) and physical inaction are some of the established behavioural hazard factors of NCDs. NCDs have emerged as the major causes of morbidity andmortality worldwide. Harmonizing to World Health Organization, in 2008, out of 57 million planetary deceases, 36 million or 63 % were due toNCDs, chiefly cardiovascular diseases or CVDs ( 17 million deceases, or 48 % of NCD deceases ) , malignant neoplastic diseases ( 7.6 million, or 21 % of NCD deceases ) , respiratory diseases, includingasthma and chronic clogging pneumonic disease ( COPD ) , ( 4.2 million ) and diabetes ( 1.3 million deceases ) . [ 2 ] These diseases have been the taking cause of decease in high-income countriesover the last 50 old ages, and they are emerging as a taking cause of decease in low and middleincome states. [ 3 ] About 80 % of NCD deceases occur in low-and middle-income states and NCDsare the most frequent causes of decease in most states, except in Africa. [ 2 ] Chronic diseases are largerproblem in low-income scenes, as dual load of infective every bit good as chronic diseases are striving their wellness services. [ 4, 5 ] In South Asia, which has onequarter of the planetary population but where about halfthe population lives below the poorness line and haslimited entree to wellness attention, about half of the grownup load ofdisease is attributable to NCDs. [ 6 ] Harmonizing to national studies gathered by WHO ‘s South East Asia regional office, of the totaldeaths in South Asia, the proportion attributable to NCDs ranged from about 7 % in Nepal to 40 % inthe Maldives in 1998. [ 7 ] In Sri Lanka the 1999 nose count study records diabetes prevalence as 8 % inrural countries and 12 % in urban countries ; [ 8 ] tantamount current rates for Nepal have been reported as 3 % and15 % severally. [ 9 ] In Nepal, prevalence of CHD in eastern part was 5.7 % in 2005. Similarly prevalence ofhypertension was 22.7 % in Dharan municipality. [ 10 ] Various surveies have shown that the prevalence ofhypertension in big population was about 20 % in urban population [ 11 ] Harmonizing to the information of ‘Sunsari Health Survey ‘ of the twelvemonth 1993, theprevalence of diabetes and high blood pressure in Sunsari District, from eastern Nepal, was about 6 % and 5.1 % severally in grownups. [ 12 ] A more recent information from an urban country has shown the prevalenceof diabetes and impaired fasting glucose as 14.2 % and 9.1 % severally. [ 13 ] At least 80 % of bosom disease, shot, and type 2 diabetes, and 40 % of malignant neoplastic disease could be avoided through healthy diet, regular physical activity, and turning away of baccy usage. [ 14 ] However, the turning planetary load ofNCDs in hapless states and hapless population has been neglected by policy shapers, majormultilateral and bilateral giver bureau and faculty members [ 15 ] .Cost effectual intercessions to cut down chronic disease hazards exist, and have worked in manycountries. [ 14 ] Nepal is one of the poorest states in the universe – at 157thposition of Human Development Index. [ 16 ] The magnitude ofNCDs is still unknown. The ministry of Health and Population ( MoHP ) , Government of Nepal hasnot yet formulated policy sing NCDs in the absence of grounds based determination. Thus it isimportant to turn to the load of NCDs through research. For this intent ab initio hospital based prevalencedata generated from the regional, sub-regional, zonary and specialised centres across the state wastargeted. This survey was expected to supply a baseline information on magnitude of the NCDs in Nepal. It aims to happen out the magnitude of the job of NCDs in Nepal, therefore directing theconcerned governments and at policy degree.MethodsIt was a cross sectional survey to place thehospital based prevalence of 4 NCDs ( malignant neoplastic disease, bosom diseases, diabetes mellitusand COPD ) .Thirty one wellness establishments ( cardinal, regional, sub-regional, zonary infirmaries, medical colleges andspecialized centres ) were selected from the five developmental parts. In Nepal, most of the instances of NCDs are treated in the third degree wellness establishments like cardinal, regional, sub-regional, zonary, specialised infirmaries and medical colleges. District degree infirmaries have fewfacilities for the diagnosing and intervent ion of NCD instances so they refer these instances to third levelhealth establishments. Taking these issues into history, we selected all the third degree wellness establishments to calculatethe infirmary based prevalence of NCDs. All specialised centres ( Bhaktapur Cancer Hospital, Bharatpur Cancer Hospital and Sahid Gangalal National Heart Center ) were besides selected to place the prevalence of different types of malignant neoplastic disease and bosom diseases inNepal.In instance of Kathmandu vale, three wellness institutions- one cardinal infirmary, onemedical college and one private infirmary were indiscriminately selected for this survey utilizing lottery method. This survey was conducted over the period of eight months from December 2009 to July 2010. Indoor patients, 35 old ages or older were included in the survey. This survey included merely the indoor patientsof the selected infirmaries because infirmaries maintain elaborate instance records of indoor patients merely and theywere easy accessible for the survey. Sample size was calculated on the footing of prevalence ( 40 % ) of NCD with12 % allowable mistake ( 95 % CI ) . The sample size calculated was 384.This figure was rounded so that 400 instances were indiscriminately selected from each selected wellness establishment. During this procedure, the infirmary records were reviewed to obtain the information sing the entire figure of indoor instances registered in the twelvemonth 2009. Then instances were selected utilizing computing machine generated random Numberss ( Ms-Excel 2007 ) until the needed sample size of 400 was reached. If the selected instance did non carry through the inclusion standards, so immediate following figure was taken as a instance. Detailss like IPD figure, age, sex, ethnicity, reference and diagnosing were so obtained.Checklist and informations digest signifiers were used for this intent. The survey was approved by the ethical reappraisal board of Nepal Health Research Council. Formalpermission was obtained from the concerned governments of the selected wellness establishments. Confidentiality was maintained. Datas obtained were coded and entered inMs-Excel 2007. The information base was so exported to SPSS ( ver. 11.5 ) for analysis.Univariate analysis was carried out utilizing frequences and per centums.ConsequencesThis survey was conducted in 31 wellness establishments ( Regional, Sub Regional, Zonal, medical colleges, specialised centres and cardinal infirmary ) of Nepal for the intent of placing the infirmary based prevalence of non catching diseases. The entire figure of patient admitted to these infirmaries in financial twelvemonth 2009 was 3, 47,261, out of which 11,907 instances were indiscriminately selected. The figure of instances selected from the wellness establishments ranged from 350 – 400.Proportion of NCDs at the National degreeWholly 11,907 instances were selected from the 31 wellness establishments including specialised Centres. Among them 36.5 % ( 4,343 ) werecases of NCDs. ( Figure 1 )Proportion of assorted NCDs at the National degreeThe proportion of bosom diseases was higher than other NCDs. Out of the sum ( 4343 ) NCD instances, bosom diseases constituted 38 % . COPD was the 2nd prima disease ( 33 % ) where as diabetes and malignant neoplastic disease was10 % and 19 % severally. ( Figure 2 )Distribution of NCDs by age groupsMajority of the patients were from 35-50 old ages followed by 51-65 old ages. Proportion of NCD instances was found to be higher in the age group & A ; gt ; 80 old ages and followed b y 66-80 old ages. ( Table 1 )Distribution of assorted NCDs among age groupsProportion of CVD and malignant neoplastic disease was found to be higher in the age group 35-50 old ages. Similarly, COPD and DM were found to be higher in age group above 80 old ages and 51-65 old ages severally. ( Table 2 )Distribution of NCDs by cultural groupsEthnicity of instances was classified in seven groups harmonizing to the authorities categorization of ethnicity. Most of the patients were from upper caste groups followed by disadvantage Janajati population while really few were from spiritual minorities. The proportion of comparatively advantagedJanajati enduring from NCDs was higher than other cultural groups. ( Table 3 )Distribution of assorted NCDs among cultural groupsThe proportion of comparatively advantaged Janajati was found to be enduring more from bosom diseases, diabetes and malignant neoplastic disease ( 22.33 % , 5.16 % and 14.73 % severally ) while dalit suffered more from COPD whic h was reported 16.97 % . ( Table 4 )Distribution of NCDs by sexAmong the entire sample population female population was higher than male population. Similarly proportion of female was found to be enduring more from NCDs in comparing to male. ( Table 5 ) It was found that among different NCDs, there were more males enduring from bosom diseases and COPD than female and females suffered more from DM and malignant neoplastic disease than male. ( Table 6 )Distribution of NCDs by developmental partsMost of the survey population was from Central Development Region followed by western Development Region whereas relatively few from Far Western Development Region. Similarly proportion of NCDs was found to be higher in CDR and WDR. ( Table 7 )Distribution of assorted NCDs among developmental partsThe survey revealed that people from WDR were found to endure more from bosom diseases and DM which account for 44.93 % and 11.25 % severally. Similarly people from FWDR and MWDR were found to be enduring more from COPD ( 55.5 % and 50.5 % ) and EDR from malignant neoplastic disease ( 31.46 % ) . ( Table 8 )DiscussionOur survey revealed that, out of the 3,294 NCD instances, bulk of the instances ( 43 % ) had COPD and 40 % had bosom diseases followed b y DM ( 12 % ) and Cancer ( 4 % ) . The ground behind such a high proportion of COPD instances could be due to the usage of traditional cookery ranges and burning of solid biomass fuels ( carnal droppings, harvest residue, and wood ) which are the chief beginnings of indoor air pollution. The ingestion of non filtered coffin nails could be another ground for the high prevalence of COPD. Harmonizing to the WHO report on Non Communicable Diseases in South East Asia Region, harmonizing to the infirmary based survey COPD is taking NCD followed by CVD, malignant neoplastic disease and diabetes in Nepal [ 17 ] . Most of the patients enduring from non catching diseases in this survey belonged to the age group 35-65 years.It is obvious from most of the studies that this age group suffered more from NCDs and therefore the inclusion standard was affecting persons & A ; gt ; 35 old ages. The study released by Mauritius on Non Communicable Diseases indicated the most normally affected age group as 25-74 old ages [ 18 ] . It seems the productive age group are largely affected and have indirect impact on productiveness and economic growing of the state as a whole. The cultural distribution of the disease showed higher proportion of advantaged Janajati ( 52.34 % out of the entire advantaged Janajati instances ) to be enduring from NCDs. Female population ( 52.47 % ) was found to be higher in proportion of NCDs [ 19 ] . Among the developmental parts of Nepal, Central Development part ( CDR ) has about half of the entire instances of NCDs. This might hold been influenced by the fact that most sophistic ated infirmaries are in Kathmandu ( which lies in CDR ) and which compels most of the people to seek wellness attention from the infirmaries of Kathmandu. The survey revealed that chest, neck and ovarian malignant neoplastic disease are the chief malignant neoplastic diseases at national degree accounting for 44 % of distribution which suggests that the female is more vulnerable to these malignant neoplastic diseases. A infirmary based retrospective survey conducted in two infirmaries viz. Bhaktapur Cancer Care Center and Om Hospital and Research Center had besides reported similar tendencies. It was observed that female ( 56.4 % ) had more figure of instances of malignant neoplastic disease than male and accounted for about 43.5 % of the entire instances of malignance. Top five malignances included: chest ( 17.31 % ) , lung ( 17.03 % ) , NHL ( Non-Hodzkin ‘s Lymphoma ) ( 8.38 % ) , tummy ( 7.54 % ) and ovarian ( 7.54 % ) malignant neoplastic diseases severally. It was found that tummy and lung malignant neoplastic disease is the most common malignant neoplastic disease that occurs in digestive and respiratory system severally, N HL in the lymphatic system and chest malignant neoplastic disease in female generative system [ 20 ] . Higher prevalence of high blood pressure ( 47 % ) followed by CVA, CCF, IHD, RHD and MI is similar as that of WHO report in Non Communicable Diseases in South East Asia Region which has showed the highest figure of instances of arthritic bosom disease followed by shot and IHD in Nepal [ 21 ] . A figure of surveies conducted in India have shown a important association with a low consumption of fruits and veggies and the hazard of non catching diseases. It has been estimated that 2.7 million lives could be potentially saved if the ingestion of fruits and veggies were sufficiently increased [ 22 ] . Our survey revealed that bosom diseases is more likely to happen in those who have accustomed ingestion of saturated oils where as American Journal of Clinical Nutrition states that diets rich in veggies and usage of mustard oil could lend to the lower hazard of IHD among Indians [ 23 ] . Similarly, in a survey done in IHD showed that a maximal figure of the respondents ( 63.8 % ) used refined vegetable oil for cookery followed by mustard oil use by 21 % which contain important degree of poly unsaturated fatty acids shown to be protective against coronary arteria disease [ 24 ] . Hence, the findings observed in the present survey point toward an pressing demand of developing strong community-based intercession plans to turn to the increasing load of these diseases.DecisionThis cross sectional survey was carried out to gauge the infirmary based prevalence of non catching diseases. It was able to uncover the grounds of job of NCD Nepal is confronting. This infirmary based cross sectional survey revealed that there were 36.5 % of the instances diagnosed with any of the four NCDs ( bosom diseases, COPD, diabetes and malignant neoplastic disease ) in the financial twelvemonth 2065/66. Breast, neck and ovarian malignant neoplastic disease are the chief malignant neoplastic diseases at national degree accounting for 44 % of distribution. Majority of the instances were of HTN ( 47 % ) followed by CVA, CCF, IHD, RHD and MI. It reflects that Nepal is besides confronting the billowing load of non catching diseases similar to other developing states of south East Asia. In decision, the magnitude of non catching disease is significant in Nepal and is regarded as a public wellness job. Although grounds for the pandemic of non catching chronic diseases is incontrovertible, as besides seen in this survey, there is a dearth of plan to observe, manage and prevent these diseases in Nepal. The governmental, non-governmental and community based organisations are still contending to undertake the load of infective diseases. Unless pressing and specific focal point on preventing, handling and control of NCDs are targeted, the load of the NCDs will be intolerable to the hapless state like Nepal. This survey had provided a background informations on NCD and the concern organisations should concentrate and lend in the bar, control and decrease of NCDs load and its hazard factors.RecommendationsGiven the complex causality of NCDs, its bar requires an incorporate action across a scope of sectors at local, regional and national degrees. Each person sector can execu te a specific function to lend from their degree. Health attention and public wellness must play a cardinal function in supplying attention and support for the patients but besides in using the alone public wellness theoretical accounts to forestall the associated hazard of NCDs.Recording and Reporting SystemPoor entering system was observed in most of the infirmaries. There was no unvarying format to enter the patient ‘s inside informations. Assorted features of the patients such as caste, reference and even diagnosings were non clearly written on record book in many infirmaries ‘ inmate registry due to which, it became hard to acquire the information refering patient and the diagnosing. Some of the medical colleges and authorities infirmaries used computing machine based package to enter the patients ‘ informations, but the package and format differ from infirmary to infirmary. So there is an huge demand of unvarying recording and coverage format and if possible the information should be maintained in an electronic version. Data based system should be established to centralise the informations and to decently keep the informations at different degree of wellness system.Ministry of Health and PopulationMinistry of Health could develop precedence based substructures and faculties to forestall and command the NCDs at different phases. It should develop a national degree policy and program of action for good planning and implementing the collaborative action between the wellness sector and other giver bureaus to stress on clinical every bit good as preventative steps for the control of NCDs. Capacity edifice plans to the medical forces like in service preparation should be provided to update the cognition and to advance the accomplishments. Most of the wellness establishments particularly in rural portion of the state, lack efficient and new engineering along with the expert work force due to which the patients are forced to travel to the urban countries for quality wellness attention. Ministry should set up non catching disease centre at each development part so that people of rural country besides can bask the quality wellness services. It should set up the surveillance system of NCDs as like other disease surveillance or demand to set up the integrated surveillance system. There is of import function of surveillance for NCDs inthe Region which can motivate the states to set up sustainable databases forNCDs and their hazard factors. This would greatly ease in policy development and planning for NCD bar and control. Advocacy runs such as consciousness raising plans, street play, concerts should be conducted for the general people on how to forestall from the hazard of developing NCDs. The Engagement of the public figures at the local and national media in these events can hike the impact.Population degreeHealth is an single issue and induction from an single degree should be done to be free from NCDs. NCDs consequence from familial, behavioural and environmental factors and the interactions between them. At the population degree, a high prevalence of hazard factors at community degree can be reduced by developing healthy life manner which includes healthy dietetic consumption ( less consumption of fried, oily, debris nutrient ) , regular physical activity, low consumption of salt, thermal balance, psychological emphasis etc. Alcoholic and smoke wont are the associated damaging factors that are responsible for different types NCDs so such wonts should be restrained. Children should be encouraged to amend the healthy life manners and behaviours to advance wellness in order to cut down the load of NCDs in the following coevals.

How to Register as a Government Contractor

For thousands of small businesses, contracting for the sale of their goods and services to the federal government agencies opens the doors of growth, opportunity and, of course, prosperity. But before you can bid on and be awarded government contracts, you or your business must be registered as government contractor. Getting registered as a government contractor is a four-step process. 1. Obtain a D-U-N-S Number You will first need to obtain a Dun Bradstreet D-U-N-S ® Number, a unique nine-digit identification number for each physical location of your business. D-U-N-S Number assignment is free for all businesses required to register with the federal government for contracts or grants. Visit the D-U-N-S Request Service to register and learn more about the D-U-N-S system. 2. Register Your Business in the SAM Database The System Award Management (SAM) resource is the database of vendors of goods and services doing business with the federal government. Sometimes called â€Å"self-certifying,† SAM registration is required by the Federal Acquisitions Regulations (FAR) for all prospective vendors. SAM registration must be completed before your business can be awarded any government contract, basic agreement, basic ordering agreement, or blanket purchase agreement. SAM registration is free and can be done completely online. As part of SAM registration process you will be able to record your business’ size and socio-economic status, as well as all FAR-required solicitation clauses and certifications. These certifications are explained in the Offeror’s Representations and Certifications - Commercial Items section of the FAR. SAM registration also serves as a valuable marketing tool for government contracting businesses. The federal agencies routinely search the SAM database to find prospective vendors based on goods and services provided, size, location, experience, ownership and more. In addition, SAM informs the agencies of firms that are certified under the SBA’s 8(a) Development and HUBZone programs. 3. Find Your Company’s NAICS Code While it’s not absolutely necessary, chances are you will need to find your North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code. NAICS codes classify businesses according to their economic sector, industry, and location. Depending on the products and services they offer, many businesses may fit udner multiple NAICS industry codes. When you register your business in the SAM database, be sure to list all of its applicable NAICS codes. 4. Obtain Past Performance Evaluations If you want to get in on the lucrative General Services Administration (GSA) contracts -- and you should want to -- you need to get a Past Performance Evaluation report from Open Ratings, Inc. Open Ratings conducts an independent audit of customer references and calculates a rating based upon a statistical analysis of various performance data and survey responses. While some GSA solicitations for bids do contain the form to request an Open Ratings Past Performance Evaluation, vendors may submit an online request directly to Open Ratings, Inc. Items You Will Need for Registration Here are some of the things you will need when registering your business. Your NAICS codesYour DUNS - Data Universal Numbering System numberYour Federal Tax Identification Number (TIN or EIN)Your Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codesYour Product Service codes (optional but helpful)Your Federal Supply Classification codes (optional but helpful) Obviously, all of these codes and certifications are geared toward making it easier for the federal government purchasing and contracting agents to find your business and match it to their specific needs.   US Government Contracting Rules to Know Once you are registered as a government contractor, you will be required to comply with several laws, rules, regulations, and procedures when doing business with the government. By far the two most important of these laws are the aforementioned Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) and the 1994 Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act (FASA). However, there are many other laws and regulations that deal with government contracting. Government Contracting Procedures Briefly Each agency of the federal government conducts business with the public through three specific authorized agents, called contracting officers. These officers are: The Procurement Contracting Officer (PCO)—awards contracts and deals with contract terminations in the event the contractor defaults on the terms of the contract.The Administrative Contracting Officer (ACO)—administers the contract.The Termination Contracting Officer (TCO)—deals with contract terminations when the government chooses to terminate the contract for its own reasons. Depending on the situation, the same person may the PCO, the ACO, and the TCO. As a sovereign entity (the sole ruling power), the federal government retains rights that commercial businesses do not have. Perhaps most importantly, the government has the right to unilaterally change the terms of the contract, provided that the changes are within the general parameters of the contract.

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The Latin American Debt Crisis - 1584 Words

The Latin American Debt crisis did not occur over night, the crisis was many years in the making and signs of its arrival were prominent in Latin American society. The reasons for its occurrence are also expansive; some fault can also be place in countries outside of Latin America. The growth rate in the real domestic product of many Latin American countries grew at a constantly high rate in the decade prior to the crisis in the 1980s, this growth led to an increase in foreign investment, corporate investment, and the world began supporting these developing nations (Ocampo). The foreign investments into Latin America created a new international financial system that gave the foreign banks access the funds to give massive loans to the†¦show more content†¦The external shocks had a big role in how the crisis occurred; the increases in interest rates are shown in the figures below found in â€Å"The Latin American Debt Crisis in Historical Perspective† by Jose A. Ocampo: The graph shows the effect on Latin America, since much of the external debt was contracted with these floating rates, and following the rise in the interest rates the commodity prices were also hit. The graph also shows the extent of the shows on Latin America lasted until the early 2000s. Subsequently, the interest rates reached a record high in the early 1980s because the Federal Reserve attempted to slow down the global recession and in turn helped cause the crisis. The loans made to Latin American nations were all based on the LIBOR rates, so the costs of each nations debt crew as the rates grew. The high interest rates along with the global recession made exports slow and thus many Latin American countries could not pay back their loans. Finally in August 1982 the finance minister of Mexico declared that Mexico would not longer be able to pay the loans made to his country and by year’s end the other four major economies in Latin America followed, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Venezuela. Since many nations began defaulting on their loans, banks essentially froze lending to Latin America, for the remainder of the 1980s banks would decrease the amount of wealth put into these nationsShow MoreRelatedLatin American Debt Crisis And Its Results1508 Words   |  7 PagesLATIN AMERICAN DEBT CRISIS, THE SOLUTIONS AND ITS RESULTS. As it known the debt crisis of the 1980s is the most traumatic economic event in Latin America’s economic history. During the â€Å"lost decade†, the GPA fell from 112% to 98% of the world average, and from 34% to 26% of the developed countries average. Development countries were giving loans to Latin American countries to enable them to straighten their economies. 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The Last Dance Chapter Seven Free Essays

When they went to see Norman Zimmer again, they were prepared to threaten him with a grand-jury subpoena. Instead, he seemed ready to cooperate. This was now Friday morning, the third day of December. We will write a custom essay sample on The Last Dance Chapter Seven or any similar topic only for you Order Now They had last seen him on Tuesday. They assumed he’d had time since then to talk to his lawyer, and fully realized the folly of impeding a homicide investigation. They sat in his corner office overlooking Stemmler Avenue and Stockwell Street. On The Stem, six stories below, thick traffic crawled by. Even with the windows closed, they could hear the incessant honking of horns, an annoyance specifically prohibited by law in this city. Here in the privacy of his own office, Zimmer nonetheless projected as if trying to reach the last row in the second balcony, his booming voice easily overriding the traffic noises floating up from below. â€Å"I’m sorry I was so short with you when you popped in the other day,† he said. â€Å"But we were just starting auditions, and I’m afraid I was a bit on edge. Things have calmed down a bit now. Ask me anything you’d like.† He was dressed the way he’d been on that last day of November, the suit brown this time, the shirt a sort of ivory color, the jacket again draped over his chair, the tie pulled down, the sleeves rolled up, the suspenders picking up the color of the tie again, which was a sort of rust-colored knit. A big man, Mrs Kipp had said. Very big. â€Å"First of all,† Carella said, â€Å"these rights.† â€Å"The rights,† Zimmer repeated. â€Å"Describe them.† â€Å"Long story.† â€Å"We have time.† â€Å"I’m not sure I do,† Zimmer said, and looked at his watch the way he had on Tuesday. The detectives thought for a fleeting moment they might have to get that grand-jury subpoena after all. Zimmer took a deep breath. â€Å"Fade in,† he said. â€Å"1923. A twenty-two-year-old woman named Jessica Miles writes an autobiographical play called Jenny’s Room. It’s a big hit, it runs for three years here on The Stem. In 1928, it’s turned into a musical that opens and closes in a month. End of story, right? Not quite. My partner Connie – whom you met at the auditions Tuesday? She’s the one who smokes a lot?† â€Å"The one I’m old enough to be her father,† Brown said. â€Å"That’s the one. She dug up the original sheet music for the musical – this was before there were such things as cast albums, you know – and guess what? ‘The score is terrific!’ The book was hopeless, of course, but that could be rewritten. So she convinced me we should do it together.† â€Å"This is the same show you’re doing now?† Brown asked. â€Å"Yes,† Zimmer said. â€Å"Well, I shouldn’t say that. It’s essentially the same show, yes. We’ve had the book rewritten, and there are several new tunes, but those are minor changes. For all intents and purposes, it’s the same show, yes.† Brown was wondering why he’d want to produce a flop all over again. â€Å"And it was based on this play called Jenny’s Room, is that right?† he asked. â€Å"Still is based on it,† Zimmer said. â€Å"That’s why we had to go to Cynthia Keating.† Brown looked at Carella. Carella looked back at him. â€Å"To obtain rights to the underlying material,† Zimmei said. â€Å"The source material. Cynthia Keating owns those rights.† Again the detectives looked stupid. â€Å"We’d already acquired the other essential rights from the three people who’d written the musical’s songs and book, but we still needed – well, wait a minute, let me correct that. The original creators had all passed away a long time ago. In most instances we were dealing with grandchildren, or even great-grandchildren, who’d succeeded to the rights by inheritance. But the underlying rights were another matter. When the musical closed in 1928, the rights to the play reverted back to the person who’d written the play – Jessica Miles. And without those underlying rights, we couldn’t proceed.† â€Å"Is Cynthia Keating a grandchild?† Carella asked. â€Å"Is that it? Or a great. . . ?† â€Å"No, Jessica Miles never married.† â€Å"Then how’d Cynthia get those rights?† â€Å"Another long story.† â€Å"We still have time.† At first, Andrew Hale knows the woman only to talk to. He sees her on his way in and out of the building, and they always exchange a friendly good morning or good evening, but that’s it. The woman is very old, far older than Andrew, who – when he first meets her – is in his early fifties. He is still married at the time. This is long before he suffers his first heart attack. In fact, this is shortly after he quit working at the hospital, or – to be more accurate – got fired from the hospital because they thought he was too old to be nursing, even though there were/ema/e nurses his age on the ward. Fifty-three, is that old? – talk about sexism. He guesses it’s because when a man reaches a certain age, they think of him as a dirty old man, and they don’t want him moving in and out of rooms where girls are wearing only surgical gowns tied up the back, their behinds all showing. He supposes the woman is in her mid-eighties, a frail little thing who looks arthritic and possibly lame in one leg, maybe she’s diabetic, who knows? One morning, he comes across her struggling to get a bag of groceries up to her third-floor apartment. He asks if he can help her with that, and she says oh, thank you, I’d truly appreciate it. A British accent, he figures she’s originally from England. Well, one thing leads to another, and this and that, and the next thing you know they’re truly friends, he’s making tea for her in the afternoons, and running little errands for her, helping her hang photographs, put up screens, dust the apartment for her, little things like that. It makes him feel young again, taking care of her. It makes him feel wanted and needed again, nursing a frail old woman this way. One day she tells him she was once a famous playwright, did he know that? He goes Come on, what are you telling me? She says No, it’s true. When I was twenty-two years old, I wrote a play called Jenny’s Room, it was a big hit, may I drop dead this very minute if I’m not telling the truth. He goes Come on, you’re kidding me. She goes Oh yeah? So look it up in the library. Jessica Miles. I’m in Who’s Who in America, i He is almost afraid to look in the book because suppose her name isn’t there? Suppose this is all some kind of fantasy? Then she’d be just a crazy old lady making up things, wouldn’t she? He doesn’t know if he can deal with that. But, hey, guess whatl His friend up there on the third floor is a celebrity! Not only did she write the play she says she wrote, but it was also turned into a musical five years later, whatty a know about that? The play starred somebody named Jenny Corbin, who was a big star back then. When he sees her the next time, he says Well, well, well, grinning at her, and she says Was I lying? and he says I’d sure love to read that play sometime, I’d be honored. She tells him it was originally called Jessie’s Room, not Jenny’s Room, because it was all autobiographical, about her coming to the city here from England and all, and her first years here working for Beneficial Loan, and the experiences she’d had with various beaux and all, and her disastrous love affair, which resulted in her vowing never to marry, all of which was in the play. But when Jenny Corbin, who was a tremendous star of the day, agreed to take the role, she also insisted they change the title to Jenny’s Room, to make it her play, you see . . . â€Å"That’s terrible,† Andrew says. â€Å"Well, no, not really,† Jessica says. â€Å"Because she made it a tremendous hit, you see. I mean, no one would have come to see something about me, but they thought the play was about her, you see, about Jenny Corbin the star, so they all flocked to the theater and I made a lot of money. And, oh, she was so very beautiful.† She does not have similar kind words for the producers of the musical five years later. She tells Andrew that they took a sensitive play – well, a play about Jessica herself – and turned it into something cheap and crass, with a libretto by some person born in Liverpool who’d previously written a comedy about soccer, can you imagine? And the words and music weren’t much better. Everything had an insistent ragtime beat to it, with obvious rhymes and the crudest sort of innuendo. As an example, they took one of the play’s most sensitive scenes – which Jenny performed like an angel, by the way – and turned it into a dance number! â€Å"The scene where she breaks up with the one true love of her life though she doesn’t realize it at the time? A truly wonderful, touching scene, the audience cried every night when Jenny did it. But in the musical, they had colored boys and girls dancing in the background in the most suggestive manner, it was just dreadful. If F d known what was going to happen to my little play, I’d never have given them permission.† â€Å"I would love to read it sometime,† Andrew says, and Jessica goes briefly into the other room and returns a moment later with the leather-bound copy her producer presented to her on opening night. That night, Andrew cries when he reads the scene in the play where Jessie breaks up with the one true love of her life without realizing it, though the audience does. His wife tells him to please be quiet, she’s trying to sleep. Not long after that, Jessica Miles becomes desperately ill. He cares for her at home until it becomes apparent she must be removed to a hospital. And then, he visits her every day, often lingering by her bedside from morning to night, and sometimes throughout the night. She dies within a matter of weeks. In her will, she leaves to him the leather-bound copy of her precious play, and something even more precious: the copyright to the play itself. â€Å"How do you know all this?† Carella asked. â€Å"Hale told me. A hundred times over,† Zimmer said. â€Å"Of course, no one at the time expected the musical would be revived. Jessica died fourteen, fifteen years ago. For all intents and purposes, the play she left him had only sentimental value.† â€Å"Until your partner rediscovered the musical.† â€Å"Yes. We did a copyright search, found that all renewals had been made, located the current owners, and proceeded to license the rights. You can imagine how thrilled these people were! The bookwriter’ s grandson works in the mail room of a publishing house in London. The lyricist’s granddaughter sells real estate in L. A. And the composer’s great-grandson drives a taxi in Tel Aviv! This revival is a godsend to them, an opportunity to make some very big bucks indeed. If the show is a hit, of course. Which I’m sure it will be,† he said, and rapped his knuckles on his desk. â€Å"When did you discover Hale had inherited the underlying rights?† â€Å"When our lawyers did the search. We weren’t expecting a problem, why would there have been a problem? In fact, we were already proceeding, assuming that rights to the play would follow as a matter of course. A new bookwriter was already working, we’d commissioned new songs and hired a director and a choreographer, everything was in motion. But finding Hale was another matter. As it turned out, he was right under our noses here in the city, but he’d moved around a lot in the past several years. Apparently he got fired from a nursing job in a hospital somewhere in Riverhead, molested a young girl in her room, or so she later said, who the hell knew? Or cared, for that matter? What we wanted were the rights to the mawkish little play Jessica Miles had written and inconsiderately willed to him.† â€Å"Are you saying it’s not a good play?† â€Å"It’s dreadful. The only thing that put it over was Jenny Corbin in the starring role. She was the mayor’s mistress at the time, you know, and quite a notorious personality. A stunning woman, from what I’ve been told.† He hung both huge hands on the air and outlined the ripeness of her breasts, nodding in appreciation. â€Å"But we needed the damn thing,† he said. â€Å"Without that play, we simply couldn’t proceed any further.† He sighed heavily, opened a cigar box on his desk, and fished a cigar from it. â€Å"Smoke?† he asked. â€Å"They’re Havanas.† â€Å"Thanks, no,† Carella said. Brown shook his head. Zimmer unwrapped the cigar, bit off one end, and struck a match. Puffing great clouds of asphyxiating smoke on the air, he waved them away with one big hand, and then settled back in his chair to puff contentedly. Without asking, Carella got up to open the window. Traffic noises flooded the room. â€Å"Well, I went to see the old man,† Zimmer said. â€Å"Never expecting a problem, mind you. Why should there be a problem? Who doesn’t want to make a fortune? I told him we were reviving the musical based on Jessica Miles’s play and wanted to license the rights from him. He flatly refused.† â€Å"Why?† Brown asked. â€Å"Because he was an idiot,† Zimmer said. â€Å"I tried to explain that he could make a lot of money if the show was a hit. No. I tried to tell him a hit show would play all over the United States, all over the world No. At first, I thought he was holding out for a bigger advance, higher royalties. But that wasn’t it.† â€Å"What was it?† Carella asked. â€Å"He was protecting Jessica’s shitty little play! Can you believe it? He said she’d been unhappy with the musical . . .well, yes, I said, so are we’.That’s why we’re having the book rewritten, that’s why we’re adding new songs. No, he said. I’m sorry. She would not want the musical revived. I would be dishonoring her wishes if I let you have her play. Three times, I went to see him. He simply would not listen to reason.† Zimmer shook his head, and blew a huge cloud of smoke at the ceiling. â€Å"So I went to see his daughter. Cynthia Keating. Mousy little housewife dominated by a legal-eagle husband who immediately appreciated how much money they could make if this show turned out to be a hit. I asked Cynthia to intercede on my behalf, go to the old man, talk some sense into him. No luck. He wouldn’t budge from his position.† Zimmer shook his head again, and looked across his desk at the detectives. â₠¬Å"So I killed him,† he said, and laughed suddenly, like a choirboy who’ d farted during a Christmas chorale. Neither Carella nor Brown even smiled. â€Å"That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?† Zimmer said. â€Å"That I had good reason to want him dead? Why not kill the stubborn son of a bitch? Be much easier to deal with the daughter, wouldn’t it?† The detectives said nothing. â€Å"Incidentally,† Zimmer said, and puffed on the cigar and then looked thoughtfully at the glowing end of it. â€Å"Cynthia knew her father was leaving her the rights to that play.† â€Å"How do you know that?† Carella asked. â€Å"He told her. Said when he died she’d be getting twenty-five grand in insurance plus the rights to this miserable little play. Forgive the editorializing, but this entire matter pisses me off a great deal.† Gee, imagine what it does to us, Carella thought. â€Å"Tell you what,† Zimmer said. â€Å"We’re having a Meet ‘N’ Greet tomorrow ni. . .† â€Å"A what?† Brown said. â€Å"Little gathering for the usual suspects,† he said, and grinned. â€Å"Why don’t you stop by?† Carella wondered what had happened to those simple cases where you walked in and found a guy with a smoking gun in his fist and a bloody corpse at his feet. Zimmer had suggested that he himself was a good suspect. Carella agreed. But so was Cynthia Keating, or her greedy little attorney husband, or any one of the copyright inheritors in London, Tel Aviv, or Los Angeles. Not to mention all the people now involved with the current show – the new bookwriter and composer, the director, the choreographer, Zimmer’ s partner. Anyone who wanted this show to happen could have hired the Jamaican who’d hanged Hale on the bathroom door like a wet towel. â€Å"What time tomorrow night?† he asked. â€Å"You want a mystery?† Parker asked them. â€Å"Here’s a mystery for you.† â€Å"We don’t want a mystery,† Carella said. â€Å"We already have a mystery,† Meyer said. â€Å"Two mysteries,† Kling said. â€Å"Too many mysteries,† Brown said. â€Å"Here’s a mystery for you,† Parker said. â€Å"I stop this guy the other day, he just went through a red light, I’m standing right there on the corner. I flag him down cause I’m a conscientious cop . . .† Brown blew his nose. â€Å". . . and I ask to see his driver’s license and registration. So he pulls all this shit out of his wallet and his glove compartment, and guess what’s there with it?† â€Å"What?† Kling asked. â€Å"His marriage certificate.† â€Å"His what?† â€Å"Yeah,† Parker said. â€Å"Why’s he carrying a marriage certificate?† â€Å"That’s the mystery,† Parker said. â€Å"Was he recently married?† â€Å"No, the certificate was ten years old.† â€Å"So why’s he carrying it around with him?† â€Å"I don’tknow. That’s why it’s a mystery.† â€Å"I hate mysteries,† Carella said. The Meet ‘N’ Greet was supposed to start at six p.m. in Connie Lindstrom’s penthouse apartment on Grover Avenue, overlooking Grover Park, a world away from the Eighty-seventh Precinct station house, but only a mile and a half farther downtown. If Brown and Carella had gone to work that Saturday, they’d have been to the party in ten minutes. But they were coming down from their homes in Riverhead, and so they allowed themselves forty minutes, Brown picking up Carella at twenty past five. By that time, a fierce snow storm had started in the city and they hit its full force just as they were crossing the bridge over the Devil’s Byte. They did not get to her building until six-thirty. As it was, they were not overly late. Most of the guests, similarly held up by the storm, were just arriving. The detectives had dressed up for the occasion, both of them wearing unaccustomed suits, Brown’s blue, Carella’s gray. They needn’ t have bothe red. Half the guests were wearing blue jeans. One of them, an actor, asked them what they did. When they told him they were police detectives, he said he had once played a cop in a summer stock production of Detective Story. The show’s new songwriter, a man who introduced himself as Randy Flynn, told Carella that the term â€Å"Meet ‘N’ Greet† was usually reserved for the start of rehearsals, when the full cast met the producers and the creative team for the first time. â€Å"Connie’s new in the business, though,† he whispered. â€Å"She sometimes gets the lingo wrong.† Flynn, a man in his sixties with several hit shows to his credit, wore a look of extreme smugness that attested to his worldwide fame. Puffing incessantly on a cigarette, he told Carella that he’d been contacted by Zimmer early in July, when they’d first acquired the rights to the original show’s music from the composer’s great-grandson in Tel Aviv. â€Å"He’s not here tonight,† he said, â€Å"but the others are.† The original lyricist’s granddaughter had been flown in from Los Angeles, where she worked at Coldwell Banker selling real estate. Her name was Felicia Carr, and she was possibly thirty-three years old, a reddish-blonde wearing the only long gown in the room, a silky green number that clung to her like moss. She was listening intently to Naomi Janus, the choreographer, who had on her head the same black rustler’s hat she’d been wearing this past Tuesday. Naomi was telling a man named Arthur Bragg that she planned some startlingly sexy dance sequences for the speakeasy number, whatever that was. Brown surmised that Bragg was the show’s musical director, whatever that was. He decided there were too many people here. Felicia said she couldn’t wait to see the dances, she just loved musicals that had a lot of sexy dancing in them. â€Å"When did you fly east?† Brown asked her. â€Å"Yesterday,† she said. â€Å"On the Red Eye.† â€Å"And you go back when?† â€Å"Oh, not for a while. I’m planning to do some Christmas shopping.† â€Å"This must be very exciting for you.† â€Å"Oh yes, it is!† she said. â€Å"I can’t wait for it to open!† â€Å"When will that be?† â€Å"Next fall sometime,† Naomi said. â€Å"Provided there’s a theater available.† â€Å"That seems a long way off.† â€Å"Well,† Naomi said, â€Å"the show’s been lying dormant since it closed in 1928, so I guess it can wait a few months more.† The bookwriter’ s grandson was a Brit named Gerald Palmer. He was in his early forties, Carella guessed, a clean-shaven man in need of a haircut. Like the two detectives, he, too, was wearing a suit, though his seemed somewhat out of fashion, an impression possibly created by its British styling. The suit was blue, the shoes he wore with it brown. In his Cockney accent, he explained to Carella, unnecessarily, that the bookwriter wrote all the words spoken onstage, as opposed to anything sung or danced. â€Å"He’s sometimes called the librettist,† he said. â€Å"My grandfather wrote an absolutely wonderful libretto for the original musical. I don’t know why they hired someone to rewrite it.† Carella guessed he hadn’t been told that the original book was â€Å"hopeless.† At just that moment, the man who’d revised the book joined them. He was tall and ungainly, in his late fifties, Carella supposed, wearing jeans, a blue shirt open at the throat, and a green shawl-collared cardigan sweater over it. â€Å"Clarence Hull,† he said, and shook hands with both of them. He immediately told Palmer – almost by way of apology, it seemed to Carella – that his grandfather’s libretto had been â€Å"quite artful for its day,† his exact words, but that the new millennium required something more immediately engaging, which was why he’d chosen to place the show’s opening not on a farm in the East Midlands, where the original had started, but instead in London, â€Å"so that the heroine isn’t a simple farm girl coming to America but is instead someone rather more sophisticated moving from one big city to another, do you see?† Palmer told him that his grandfather had once written a straight play as we ll, â€Å"A comedy, actually,† he said, â€Å"about soccer,† which he thought might make a good musical, given the current American obsession with the sport. Hull told him flatly that the only sports musical that had ever made it was Damn Yankees, and then excused himself to go refill his champagne glass. Palmer told Carella that for the past fifteen years he’d been working in the â€Å"post room,† as he called it, of a publishing house called Martins and Grenville, â€Å"the last publisher in Bedford Square, d’you know it? A highly prestigious firm.† He said he was thrilled they were doing his granddad’s show again. â€Å"I hope it’ll come to London one day,† he said. â€Å"When did you get here?† Carella asked. â€Å"Flew over on Wednesday.† â€Å"Where are you staying?† â€Å"The Piccadilly. Sounded a lot like home,† he said, and grinned. He’d shaved too close. There were razor nicks on his chin. â€Å"When will you be going back?† â€Å"Not till next Sunday. I’m taking a little time here, enjoying the city. Plenty of time for work later on, eh?† he said. Cynthia Keating was wearing a simple black cocktail dress. Her husband Robert was another of the men wearing a suit. Brown figured anyone not intimately connected with show business had dolled up for the occasion. He was beginning to feel somewhat like a horse’s ass. The suit Keating had on was a severe pinstripe. He looked as if he might be trying a case for IBM. Cynthia was telling Rowland Chapp, the show’s director, that the original play Jessica Miles had written was â€Å"perfectly wonderful,† something Chapp accepted with a distracted nod that indicated he knew precisely how dreadful the play was. Brown wanted to go home. Champagne and canapes were coming around on trays, served by a pair of wannabe actors who were dressed in black and white tonight, earnestly playing witty waiter and flirtatious waitress. Snow swirled past the penthouse windows, the flakes illuminated by corner floodlights that made them appear as sharp and as swift as tiny daggers. Connie Lindstrom tapped on her champagne glass. â€Å"I have a treat,† she said. â€Å"Randy?† There was applause, and then a hush as Randy Flynn went to the grand piano in one corner of the room, sat, and lifted the lid over the keys. Behind him, snowflakes rushed the night. â€Å"I’m going to play the show for you,† he said. â€Å"Including the three new songs I wrote. We’ve kept the original conceit, the entire musical takes place in Jenny’s room. The window in her room is a window on the city. We see the city, we see everything happening in the city through her eyes, from her point of view.† He began playing. Carella could not determine where any new songs had been added; to him, the music flooding the air in Connie Lindstrom’s penthouse apartment sounded seamless. As Flynn sang in his raspy smoker’s voice, Carella floated back to another time and place, this city in the year 1928, when everything seemed fresh and innocent to a young girl named Jenny, fantasizing in her room all the way downtown, in an immigrant area then called – as it still was – The Lower Platform. But, oh, the differences between then and now. Flynn sang of a young girl’s yearnings and awakenings in a wondrous island bordered by confluent rivers and spanned by magical bridges. He sang of golden towers rising into the clouds, interlaced with immaculate streets, humming belowground with subways not yet sullied by time or wear. He sang of promise and hope for a population of immigrants that had brought with them customs to treasure and to nourish. As he sang, his voice became a choir of voices, the voices of a hundred tribes with as many different backgrounds, joining together in this shining new land, to become at last a single strong united tribe. Here beyond the windows in Jenny’s room. . . Ah, what a wonderland there had been. Flynn struck the last chord of the last dance. It was still snowing. Carella looked across the room to where his partner stood solid and big and black against the white flakes swirling outside. Randy Flynn rose from the piano bench, placed the palms of his hands together like a guru, and bowed in transparently false modesty, accepting applause from the assembled guests. Brown’s eyes scanned the room. So did Carella’s. Almost anyone in this room could have killed Andrew Hale. There was no way the detectives who caught the murder down in Hopscotch could have connected it with the murders uptown. No way. The first victim uptown had been a sixty-eight-year-old white man who’d been hanged from a door hook and then transported to a bed. The second one had been a nineteen-year-old black girl stabbed in the chest with a knife grabbed from her own kitchen counter. The prior ingestion of a drug called Rohypnol was the only connecting link between them – if, in fact, it was a link and not the sort of coincidence that plagued police work. Except when they were reading novels, the cops in this city rarely came across serial killers. Serial killers in novels were enormously popular these days, but that did not mean they were running rampant all over the United States. Current estimates maintained that only some thirty-five to fifty of them were out there loose. In order for a murderer to qualify as a bona fide serial killer, he had to have killed three or more people within a relatively short period of time. On the other hand, a serial killer was not someone who killed Uncle George and two days later killed Cousins Mandy and Maude because they’d seen him commit the first murder. That was merely a careful murderer. The cops in this city investigated some 2,000 homicides annually. Even if the detectives catching the downtown squeal had remotely suspected a connection between the Hale murder, the Cleary murder, and this new murder, they would not have jumped to the conclusion that a raving lunatic serial killer was loose in the city. The detectives catching the squeal early that Monday morning might have heard about the Hale murder from television, but they most certainly had not heard about the murder of an obscure little black girl in Diamondback. So it never once entered their minds that this new murder was somehow related to the previous two, serially or otherwise. According to a birth certificate they found in a candy tin in the top drawer of her bedroom dresser, the victim’s name was Martha Coleridge and she was ninety-eight years old. A thin, birdlike creature, she lay in her nightgown at the foot of the bed, her neck apparently broken. The detectives – an experienced First named Bryan Shanahan, and a newly appointed Third named Jefferson Long – went through the lady’s belongings, sifting through browned letters and diaries, knowing they wouldn’t find any clues in all this stuff, but going through the drill anyway. What they figured was that some junkie burglar had come in here, stolen the old lady’s grocery money, and then snapped her neck for good measure. They kept looking through her old papers, tossing them onto the bed while the ME examined the body. One of the things they found was a blue binder with a typed label on it. The label read: MY ROOM by Martha Coleridge What was inside the binder looked like some kind of play or something. They tossed it on the bed with all the other crap. The first thing that attracted the Reverend Gabriel Foster to the case was the fact that the white suspect had been released on bail whereas his black counterpart had been denied bail and remanded to the Men’s House of Detention. Same crime, same judge, two shooters, one white, one black, different disposition. That was the first thing, but it wasn’t enough to send him running through the streets, because what he was sensing here was a change in the public mood. Whereas Maxwell Corey Blaine and Hector Milagros had at first been treated like national heroes for disposing of that vilest of human beings, the informer, they were now being pilloried as monsters or worse because a second informer – who was now a media darling and something of an instant heroine – had for a substantial reward turned in the white man, who had at once copped a plea and given up his partner, the black man who’d been denied bail. The world was full of no-good dirty rats these days, but Foster wasn’t about to take up the banner for a pair of universally reviled murderers. Until a pair of ambitious detectives made life easier for him. The partners were named Archie Bingman and Robert Tracey, familiarly called Bingo and Bop by the people who lived in Hightown, where Enrique Ramirez ran his pool hall and his drug operation. They had been dogging El Jefe’s tracks for the past year and a half now. Under the federal Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute, murders committed in the furtherance of criminal enterprise were punishable by lifetime sentences. The Colombian cartel was most definitely a racketeer-influenced and corrupt organization. If they could tie the Guide’s Pizzeria murder to El Jefe’s drug operation, he’d be sitting on his ass in Kansas for the rest of his life, Toto. Bingo and Bop felt certain that the two shooters hadn’t revealed anything that might incriminate Ramirez. The indicted pair knew well enough that the long arm of the cartel could reach into the loneliest of prison cells, and they did not long for an icepick in the eye one dark and stormy night. Better to ride the road upstate alone, do the time, and breathe easy. Besides, if the pair had traded Ramirez for some kind of Chinese deal, the grand jury would have already indicted him. Bingo and Bop knew of no such paper handed down. It galled them to know that one of Ramirez’s hit men was sitting downtown in custody, where any police officer with a bit of ingenuity could gain access to him and perhaps learn something about who had sent whom to shoot the hapless little stoolie neither of the detectives had ever met or used. They already knew who had sent Milagros to that pizzeria because it was common knowledge up here in the Eight-Nine that Milagros and his partner Blaine were two ofEUefe’s cleanup men. In the American criminal justice system, however, knowing something wasn’t enough. You also had to be able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, worse luck. That Monday night, the sixth of December, while two detectives in Hopscotch filed their DD-5 on the little old lady who’d had her neck broken, and the reverend Foster pored over that day’s newspapers trying to figure out a way to turn the arrest of Hector Milagros to his advantage, Bingo and Bop drove downtown to the Men’s House of Detention in its new quarters on Blanchard Street, and told the jailer on duty they were there to see the Guide’s Pizzeria shooter. The jailer wanted to know on whose authority. â€Å"We’re investigating a related drug matter,† Bingo said. â€Å"You got to go through his lawyer,† the jailer said. â€Å"We already talked to him,† Bop said. â€Å"He told us it’s okay.† â€Å"I need it in writing,† the jailer said. â€Å"Come on, don’t break ’em, willya?† Bingo said. â€Å"Where the fuck we gonna find his lawyer, this hour?† â€Å"Find him tomorrow,† the jailer said. â€Å"Come back tomorrow.† â€Å"We got something hot can’t wait till tomorrow,† Bingo said. â€Å"You ever hear of hot pursuit?† Bop said. â€Å"I never heard of hot pursuit leadin to a jail cell.† â€Å"Come on, we want to nail this cocksucker sellin dope to your kids.† â€Å"My kids are grown up and livin in Seattle,† the jailer said. â€Å"Ten minutes, okay?† â€Å"The door was open, and you walked in,† the jailer said. Milagros was in his cell reading his Bible. One other cell in the hall was occupied by an old man mumbling in his sleep. Milagros had never seen these guys in his life, and he wondered how they’ d got in here. His lawyer hadn’t mentioned anything about anybody coming to see him. Far as Milagros knew, he’d be sitting on his ass here in The Catacombs till his case came to trial. The way his lawyer had explained it, you couldn’t convict somebody solely on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice. Anyway, who was gonna believe a guy who tried to kill five cops and succeeded in hurting one of them pretty bad? Nobody, that’s who. Just sit tight and you walk, his lawyer had said, which was fine with Milagros. So who were these two guys, and what did they want here, this hour of the night? The door clicked open electrically. Bingo and Bop entered the cell, and closed the door behind them. From the far end of the corridor, the jailer threw the switch that locked it again. Bingo smiled. Milagros had learned a long time ago all about guys who came at you smiling. The other one was smiling, too. â€Å"So tell us who sent you to the pizzeria,† Bingo said. â€Å"Who the fuck are you?† Milagros asked. â€Å"Nice talk,† Bop said. â€Å"We’re two fellas gonna send your boss away,† Bingo said. â€Å"What boss you talkin abou’, man?† â€Å"Enrique Ramirez.† â€Å"Don’t know him.† â€Å"Oh dear,† Bingo said. â€Å"Get the fuck outta here, I call d’key.† â€Å"The key is down the hall takin a leak,† Bop said. â€Å"I wake up dee whole fuckin jail you don’ ged outta here,† Milagros said. â€Å"Oh dear,† Bingo said again. â€Å"Someone I’d like you to meet,† Bop said, and yanked a nine from a shoulder holster. â€Å"Mr Clock,† he said, â€Å"meet Mr Milagros.† Milagros looked at the semi. â€Å"Come on, whass dis?† he said. â€Å"Dis,† Bop said, mimicking him, â€Å"is a pistol. Una pistola, maricon. Comprende?† â€Å"Come on, whass dee matter wi’ you?† â€Å"Who sent you to kill that fuckin pussy-clot?† â€Å"Nobody. He owe us money, we go on our own.† â€Å"El Jefe sent you, didn’t he?† â€Å"You know who El Jefe is?† Milagros said, and tried a smile. â€Å"My mama is El Jefe. Thass wha’ me an’ my brudders call her. Jefita.† â€Å"Gee, is that what you call your mama?† Bingo said. â€Å"Is that what you call your whore mama?† Bop said. † ‘Ey, man, watch your mou’, okay?† â€Å"You watch your mouth,† Bop said, and rammed the barrel of the nine against Milagros’s lips. â€Å"‘Ey, man . . .† â€Å"Eat it!† Bop said. â€Å"Man, what you . . . ?† Bop swung the muzzle sideways across Milagros’s mouth. There was the sound of something snapping. There was a spray of blood. Teeth clicked loose and spilled onto the air. â€Å"Jesus Chri. . .† â€Å"Shhh,† Bingo said. â€Å"Eat it,† Bop said again, and slid the barrel of the gun into Milagros’s mouth. â€Å"Quiet now,† Bingo said. Milagros began to blubber. His eyes were wide. Blood dribbled from the corners of his mouth, around the barrel of the nine. â€Å"Who sent you to kill him?† Milagros shook his head. â€Å"No, huh?† Bop said, and cocked the pistol. â€Å"Who?† he insisted. Milagros shook his head again. â€Å"You ought to go see your dentist again,† Bingo said, and nodded. Bop swung the gun against Milagros’s mouth. He almost choked on his own teeth. The jailer didn’t see what had happened to Milagros until he made his rounds at midnight. Long before then, he had clicked open Milagros’s cell from his end of the corridor and had watched the two detectives approaching the steel door with its bulletproof viewing window, and had let them out into the small holding room, and then out of the complex itself. Now, as he came down the corridor, the old man in the cell next to Milagros’s was sitting upright on his cot, his eyes wide, but saying nothing. The jailer knew right away something was very wrong. Milagros was lying on the floor of his cell. There was blood on the floor, and scattered teeth, and what looked and smelled like vomit. There was also another smell because Milagros had soiled himself while the two detectives were methodically knocking every tooth out of his mouth, but the jailer didn’t yet know the full extent of what had happened here, he saw only the blood and a handful of teeth in the spill of light from the after-hours illumination in the corridor. The jailer had read enough newspapers in the past few months. He didn’t even go into Milagros’s cell. He went back down the corridor, past the cell of the old man with the wide accusative eyes, and he unlocked the steel door at the far end, and locked it again behind him, and walked directly to the wall phone by the officers’ station, and called his immediate superior, the Security Division captain on duty. The jailer’s story was that two detectives had come into the lockup showing a piece of paper authorizing them to question Hector Milagros. He couldn’t remember their names. He’d asked them to sign in, and he assumed they both had; he hadn’t looked at the log book afterward. He told the captain they’d been in the prisoner’s cell for about half an hour, and that he hadn’t heard anything out of the ordinary during that time. Then again, there was a thick steel door at the end of the corridor. He said he couldn’t remember having seen either of the detectives down here before, nor could he remember what either of them looked like, except that one had a mustache. The duty captain figured the man was covering his own ass. He read newspapers, too. Lest anyone later accuse him of having delayed while a story was being concocted, he called an ambulance at once, and had the prisoner expressed to nearby St Mary’s, the same hospital Sharyn Cooke had moved Willis from not four nights earlier. Then he telephoned the deputy warden of Security Division, who listened to the story from his bed at home, alternately expressing surprise and grave concern. The deputy warden in turn woke up the warden, who was commanding officer of the entire facility. The warden debated waking up the supervisor of the Department of Corrections, but finally called him at home. The Police Commissioner himself was awakened at close to three in the morning. It was he who informed the media at once, before anyone began thinking a cover-up was taking place here. Gabriel Foster didn’t hear the news until he turned on his television set the next morning. That same morning, Carella first called Cynthia Keating’s attorney to tell him he hoped he didn’t have to yank her before a grand jury to get a few simple questions answered, and when Alexander started getting snotty on the phone, Carella said, â€Å"Counselor, I haven’t got any more time to waste on this. Yes or no?† â€Å"What questions?† Alexander asked. â€Å"Questions pertaining to the rights she inherited from her father.† â€Å"In my office,† Alexander said. â€Å"Ten o’clock.† They got there at five minutes to. Alexander was wearing chocolate-brown corduroy trousers, tan loafers, a beige button-down shirt, a green tie, and a brown tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. He looked like a country gentleman expecting the local pastor for tea. Cynthia was wearing a pastel-blue cashmere turtleneck over a short miniskirt, navy blue pantyhose, and high-heeled navy patent pumps. She looked long and leggy, her dark hair styled differently, her makeup more unrestrained. Altogether, she seemed to exude an air of self-confidence that hadn’t been apparent that first morning in October, after she’d admittedly dragged her father from his perch on the closet door to his new resting place on the bed. Apparently, the prospects of a hit musical did wonders for the personality. Alexander, on the other hand, seemed his same brusque, blond, blustering self. â€Å"What do you want from my client?† he said. ‘Twenty-five words or less.† â€Å"Honesty,† Carella said. â€Å"That’s a lot less,† Meyer said. Alexander shot him a look. â€Å"She’s always been honest with you,† he said. â€Å"Good,† Carella said. â€Å"Then we won’t have to work so hard, will we?† â€Å"Tell me something. You don’t really think she had anything to do with her father’s murder, do you?† Carella looked at Meyer. Meyer gave a faint shrug, a brief nod. â€Å"She’s a suspect, yes,† Carella said. â€Å"Have you shared that thought with anyone else? Anyone outside the police department, for example? Because I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, if Mrs Keating is libeled. . .† â€Å"The hell with this,† Carella said. â€Å"Let’s go, Meyer.† â€Å"Just a second, Detective.† â€Å"I told you on the phone I won’t waste any more time with you,† Carella said. â€Å"If I walk out of here empty, I go straight to the D.A.’s office. Yes, no, which? Say. Now.† â€Å"I’ll give you half an hour, no more,† Alexander said, and went behind his desk, and tented his hands and sat there scowling at the detectives. â€Å"I’ll make this brief,† Carella said. â€Å"At the time of your father’s death, you knew he’d left you the rights to Jessica Miles’s play, isn’t that so?† â€Å"Yes.† â€Å"Then why didn’t you tell us?† â€Å"I’m sorry?† â€Å"You told us about the twenty-five-thousand-dollar insurance policy . . .† â€Å"Yes?† â€Å"And your concern that it might contain a suicide clause. . .† â€Å"That’s right. But. . .† â€Å"Why didn’t you also mention you’d inherited the play?† â€Å"I didn’t think it was important.† â€Å"You didn’t. . .† Carella turned away from her. He looked at Meyer, who said nothing. He went back to her. There was a tight, controlled look on his face. Meyer watched him. â€Å"How much were you paid for the license to those rights?† â€Å"That’s none of your business,† Alexander said. â€Å"Okay, so long,† Carella said. â€Å"Meyer? Let’s go.† â€Å"Three thousand dollars for a year’s option,† Cynthia said at once. â€Å"And three thousand for a second year, if it hadn’t been produced by then.† â€Å"What kind of royalties are you getting?† â€Å"Same as the others.† â€Å"Which others?† â€Å"The guy in London . . .† â€Å"Gerald Palmer?† â€Å"Yes. And the cab driver in Tel Aviv. And the girl from Los Angeles. The redhead in the long gown. Felicity Carr.† â€Å"Felicia,† Meyer corrected. â€Å"Felicia, yes. We’ll be sharing six percent of the weekly gross.† â€Å"Do you realize how much money . . . ?† â€Å"Cynthia, you can end this any time you want to,† Alexander said. â€Å"And go before a grand jury?† â€Å"I hardly think the gentlemen will convene a grand jury simply to . . .† â€Å"Do you realize how much money that can come to?† Carella said. â€Å"Six percent of the grossl Split four waysT â€Å"I imagine quite a lot,† Cynthia said. â€Å"If the show’s a hit.† â€Å"Then how can you say . . . ?† He turned away from her again. Walked back. Let out his breath. â€Å"Do you want us to arrest you?† he asked. â€Å"Of course not.† â€Å"Then how can you say you didn’t think it was important†? You tell us about a lousy little insurance policy . . .† â€Å"Lower your voice, Detective. She’s not in Canada.† â€Å". . . but you don’t tell us about a play that can eventually earn hundreds of thousands of dollars for you? Because you don’t think it’s important!† â€Å"I didn’t kill him.† â€Å"I think that’s enough,† Alexander said. â€Å"I’m not finished.† â€Å"I said that’s . . .† â€Å"I said I’m not finished.† â€Å"I didn’t kill him.† â€Å"When did you sign over the rights to that play?† â€Å"I did not kill my father.† â€Å"When, Mrs Keating?† â€Å"I didn’t kill him, damn it!† â€Å"When?† â€Å"Right after the will was probated.† â€Å"And when was that?† â€Å"Two weeks after his death,† she said. How to cite The Last Dance Chapter Seven, Essay examples

Educational Research Single Su Essay Example For Students

Educational Research Single Su Essay Educational Research Single-Subject Critique Establishing Discriminative Control of Responding Using Functional and Alternative Reinforcers During Functional Communication Training Wayne W. Fisher, David E. Kuhn, and Rachel H. Thompson Appropriateness of research question or purpose: The purpose of this research was interesting and of value as it focused on problems that often occur when Functional Communication Training (FCT) is in use. This study sought to find effective solutions as desired . . .responses may be weakened and destructive behaviors may reemerge . . . when reinforcements of communication are delayed or denied due to impossibility or inconvenience of the caregiver or instructors ability to provide said reinforcement in a timely manner. . . .procedures are needed to increase the effectiveness of FCT in situations in which it is impractical or impossible to deliver a given reinforcer. Research design and design rationale: This study was broken up into 4 phases (the fourth phase . . .was completed with only 1 participant in only one condition because of time limitations on the participants hospital admission.) Phase 1: Functional Analyses and Descriptive Assessments. Alternating treatment with no baseline design. During this analysis, a test condition . . .and a control condition were compared using a multi-element design. Phase 2: Communication and Discrimination Training. Phase 3: Treatment Evaluation of FCT with Discriminative Stimuli. Between series, alternating treatment (ABAB) design was used to compare FCT + EXT vs. ACT + EXT in two conditions for one participant (Amy) and in one condition for one participant (Ned). Phase 4: Independent Effects of FCT and EXT. Between series, alternating treatment and a final treatment design was used to compare FCT/ACT (w/o EXT) vs. EXT alone with the final series being strictly FCT/ACT (w/o EXT). The order of presentation for Amys discrimination training were . . . stimulus-present and stimulus-absent periods that were alternated every 30 s for the duration of the 10-min session. For Ned, . . .one SD at a time was presented for 1 min. The order of the first three SD presentations in a given session was randomized, without replacement; thereafter, the order remained constant. Phase 1 was conducted to test the hypotheses generated by the results of. . .descriptive assessments. . . to determine whether . . .destructive behavior was multiply maintained by both attention and access to tangible items, but under specific stimulus conditions for Amy. . . and whether destructive behavior was maintained by . . .attention for Ned, therefore this specific phase of the test did not require a baseline. Once these results were established, and training had incurred, the rationale for design for Phases 3 and 4 were to show contrast between the various interventions. Overall study limitations: This study covered its bases well and the only limitation I can rightly see is one that is prone to single-subject research, that is, the use of only two participants. It would have strengthened this study further too if the researchers had been able to complete the final Phase 4 on both of the participants. .