Dante’s Inferno: Sixth Circle of Hell

Dante’s Inferno: Sixth Circle of Hell â€Å"Every evil deed despised in Heaven has as its end injustice. Each such end harms someone else through either force or fraud† (Alighieri XI 22-24). In his divine comedy, The Inferno, Dante Alighieri cruises around the different circles of hell. Virgil, a poet and a good friend of Dante’s, becomes Dante’s guide in hell. Trough out the poem, the reader encounters certain moments of tension in which he or she is forced to choose a direction to follow. In Canto XI, Virgil and Dante find themselves in the sixth circle of hell: circle of violence. Virgil then explains to Dante that there are three inner circles: violence against others, violence against self, and fraud. In the second inner circle, the circle of suicide or violence against self, Virgil and Dante find a deserted forest with twisted weird looking trees. These trees are the people who reside in that circle. Here, the reader is presented with people who have committed suicide because of hardships in their lives. The reader is then presented with the opportunity to either feel sorry and justify their suicide or find their placement in hell a just punishment. In the second inner circle, violence against self, Dante and Virgil meet one of the residents. His name was Pier Delle Vigne, a former minister of Emperor Frederick II. Pier, then, tells Virgil and Dante that reason why he committed suicide was because envious groups schemed him, turned the Emperor against him, destroyed his reputation, and put him in prison; he was too ashamed and decided to take his life. Dante feels sorry for him, because he too understands the importance of a good reputation. At this point the reader is offered the chance to agree with Dante and feel sorry for Pier, or completely disagree. Life is one of the greatest gifts from God, keeping this in mind; suicide would be denying or not appreciating that gift. Everyone in hell is there because in one way or another they denied and committed a sin against God. Regardless of what others did to him, Pier denied God, so one can come to the conclusion that his positioning in hell is just. In the contrary, life or God does not give you more than you can handle. All the alse accusations made against Pier were obviously more than what he could handle, so one could feel sorry for him and justify his suicide. So it is up to the reader to choose one of the two possible opportunities that Dante the poet presents to us. In Dante’s divine comedy, The inferno, the reader is offered with many occasions where he or she is must choose a direction to follow. In the sixth circle of hell, the circle of violence, Virgil explains that there are three inner circles: circle of violence against others, circle of violence against self, and the circle of fraud. In the second inner circle Dante and Virgil meet Pier Delle Vigne. After listening to his story and explanation onto why he took his life, the reader had the option of agreeing with Dante and feeling sorry for Pier’s justified action or find Pier’s punishment just. Life is a gift of God, so taking one’s life is committing a sin against God; which will make Pier’s punishment just. This conclusion could be made if the reader believes in God.

Nashville Predators Case Essay

The Nashville Predators have been going through a seemingly endless process since entering the NHL in 1998. It did not take the Predators long to establish a successful and competitive nature among the franchise. Their first five seasons they struggled becoming a team and missed the playoffs, however, they have come together and made the playoffs every year since. The Predator’s on-ice performance was consistently among the top three teams in the league, but still faced many challenges. Although the Predator’s on-ice performance continued to mature, they still struggled with growth in ticket sales. How does a number three ranked NHL team fall to twenty-three of thirty teams in overall ticket sales? Clearly something needs to be evaluated in the management marketing strategy. According to many officials, Nashville has all the tools to generate a profitable franchise. It seems that since a team plays well that they should attract a loyal fan base. It was not this easy for the Predators as they dealt with several contracts over the years to gain one full-time owner. The team’s franchise might be undergoing new ownership once again. This puts an immense amount of stress on the management team as they have several things to prepare, for a potential new owner. The team believes that a new owner might move the Predators to a location outside of Nashville. The management team needs to come up with an efficient marketing plan/ strategy for the new owner. Re-location suggestions are among the top issues to evaluate. The team has narrowed their approach to five potential cities for the Predators, as well as the possibility of leaving them in Nashville. Hamilton, Winnipeg, Kansas City, Las Vegas, and Houston were among the best-fit re-location options. Although the team needed to look at other cities, they were also determined  to prove Nashville could be a success. The management team believed that with the on-ice success and a new and exciting marketing campaign would increase the average attendance at games. Some challenges they faced along the way were mainly generating more revenue, and targeting a new clientele. NHL depends heavily on ticket revenue and less on broadcasting compared to any other professional sport. This alone tells the management team, much more focus needs to be applied toward selling tickets. While more tickets need to be sold, there is a separate approach within this strategy. The majority of NHL teams sell sixty percent of their tickets to corporations, and accommodate business suites. The Predators are generating seventy percent of ticket revenue through individual sales and only thirty percent from business packages. This is a number that needs to improve for the franchise as they look to increase rev enue. Gaining support from major corporations is always an upside for any business. Whether the team moves, or remains in Nashville, there are several key decisions that the management team must make. First off they have to establish a comprehensive strategy starting with a recommended location. Where the Predators will be best fit is a decision that must be set in stone. Once you have the location set is when the team can move into an overall strategy for the franchise. They will need to consider recommendations on promotions, pricing, and customer focus. What will the ticket prices be, and how will they obtain the brand (team) loyalty from fans? No matter what strategy they decide it must be viable and profitable. Ticket prices are directly correlated to the attendance in the building, and present a major challenge. Last but certainly not least; the team must develop a strategy for targeting new corporations among its new location. This is hockey, however, at the end of the day this is business and is about having, â€Å"a good product on the ice†. Upon further evaluation of the franchise’s relocation, an internal analysis of strengths and weaknesses helps to visualize potential. As I said before, the Nashville Predators have a good team, but things must be evaluated to understand what to and what not to stress in their marketing strategy. Nashville Predator Franchise STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES On-ice performance: achieved playoff contention every year since 2003; Ranked third of thirty teams in NHL Competitive Nature: a team that plays well and succeeds generates more awareness & fans Sommet Center: only twelve years old; over seventeen thousand in capacity Seventy luxury suites for businesses Newly Renovated Arena: updated game clock/ score board; hundreds of televisions added for better spectator views State of the art technology in Arena Majority of employees/ players have been together for a while now and know how to work together through changes As of right now they have no clear strategy Management team is â€Å"in the dark†: because the team has not confirmed whether or not they are gaining a new owner- the management team is forced to plan for multiple scenarios under new ownership; Preventing them from focusing on one effective strategy Lack of corporate interest in Predators franchise Due to the attempts/ failures of multiple ownership agreements: the franchise appears as unwanted and undesirable to outsiders Lack of customer Service Department- over five hundred thousand dollars Lack of consistency within franchise External Analysis: Customers- NHL tickets serve purely hedonic needs in the eyes of the consumers, as Sports games are a facet of the entertainment industry. One group that the NHL targets in ticket sales are fans of the sport, both diehard and casual. Diehard fans purchased season tickets regardless of winning or losing seasons or other conditions and as such they are not considered price sensitive compared to casual fans. Casual watchers of hockey perform more of a search to find the best entertainment option for their dollar and can be trickier to encourage buying multiple tickets. Based on statistical figures your average NHL fan is a male in his middle 40’s, although almost 40% of fans are women. An interesting fact is that according  to the article, NHL fans are wealthier than any other fan of a major league North American sport. Fans of the sport geographically speaking are spread out across North America, but NHL franchise attendance is highest in Canada and Northern U.S. regions. Cont ext: Political: the National Hockey League governs Major league hockey games. The NHL regulates how many games are in each season, controls where teams are located or relocated, and determines salaries for players, etc. Economic: Like any other entertainment option, success as a business depends on the customer’s amount of discretionary income. If the general economy is suffering, NHL games likely suffer in terms of ticket revenue. Social: NHL is a part of the sports entertainment industry, which continues to grow into a multi-billion dollar industry. Many in North America follow a sport one way or another and are a way to socialize with other fans. Technological: Not too many technological advances in the sport of hockey, other than to watch games while not in attendance. Company- The National Hockey League (NHL) is the governing body for professional hockey teams. The league, more than any of the other professional leagues, depends on ticket sales as a main source of revenue. According to Porter’s generic strategies, the focus of the NHL is to provide a different kind of professional sports experience at a competitive price point. Unlike football or baseball, hockey is generally not susceptible to fluctuations in ticket revenue based on weather since it is an indoor event. No other sport is played on ice so that is the NHL’s main source of competitive advantage. Collaborators- The NHL is in contract with venue leasing companies to provide the arena for the games and they are their biggest collaborators. Also contributing to the game day experiences are the firms that provide the food and beverages, manufacture the merchandising and player uniforms/equipment, security, etc. Most of these arenas aren’t built solely for hockey games so firms that design, build, and manage the ice rinks are crucial to delivering the product. Competition: Product Category Competition: NFL, NBA, MLB, and MLS Generic Competition: College sports games, race tracks (of horse and car variety), lesser league/amateur league sports games, high school sports  games, heater performances, concerts, other live events, etc. Budget Competition: Movie theaters, restaurants, PPV, etc. Power of Suppliers- Low/ If we are assuming the players are the suppliers since without Them the sport wouldn’t exist. The NHL has every player on a contract and while there Are other hockey leagues they are of lesser quality and do not pay as well as in the NHL. Providers of the food/beverage, merchandising, etc. are not in control because it is easy for the NHL and the individual teams to seek other sources. Power of Buyers- High/ Potential ticket purchasers can seek other forms of entertainment that is of more value to them. Powers of Substitutes- High/ There are other lesser leagues as well as a plethora of non-professional sports that the NHL has to compete with. Power of New Entrants- Low/ Each individual sport has their own governing body that regulates the professional games. To rival the NHL there would need to be massive capital costs, economies of scale, etc. Rivalry- High/ Other professional leagues compete to attract the casual sports fans to increase ticket revenue When looking at the Nashville NHL franchise, it is important to consider the competition it has with other league teams, such as the Tennessee Titans and the Nashville Sounds. In this situation, Nashville in particular doesn’t have any other major league team but within a couple hours’ drive is the Memphis Grizzlies, an NBA team. Nashville is also a popular destination for music lovers. This aspect of the entertainment industry poses a threat to the Predators franchise. The franchise is also at a disadvantage geographically as fans of NHL is more congregated in northern regions and into Canada. The NHL desired to reach into the southeastern U.S. region but based on the performance of Nashville and other franchises as Atlanta, Carolina, and the Florida Panthers, it seems that the experiment is failing. 4. Hamilton- The target market that this city should focus on is the casual fan. With its proximity to Toronto and Buffalo, Hamilton will have a difficult time luring diehard fans since they already have their team loyalties. Casual fans aren’t as willing to travel to watch games so targeting these fans would be an advantage. The team should be positioned as the closer, more hometown team since fans in the city probably had to travel to attend NHL games. Competition could arise from its close proximity to already established NHL teams; this location option in our opinion is seen as cannibalization more than already as ticket revenue would likely cut into Toronto, Buffalo, and other Canadian teams. Winnipeg- This location should target the diehard fans in particular as it is noted that the city once held an NHL franchise and many in the city are desperate to have another team again. Positioning the team would be easy, it’s the best games, the best players, and it’s the NHL, the pinnacle of hockey. As far as competition, it seems that the team would have no significant location competition, as there are no other professional teams in the area, just NHL affiliates. Kansas City- This location should target the casual fan or entertainment seeker, as there is intense competition from other professional teams such as the NFL Chiefs, MLB Royals, and an arena football league team. The franchise would have to be positioned as something different in the city, as a different way to enjoy an intense physical sport that compares to football in that regard. Las Vegas- An NHL franchise in this city would be the only professional league team in the city, and other than competing with the gambling/dining/other entertainment options offered by the tons in the â€Å"entertainment capital of the world† would have the ability to stand out as an elite sports experience that stays year round. Las Vegas hosts all sorts of other sports events, but this would be a year round sports experience. The target market would need to be both casual and diehard sports fans as this would be the only professional sport in the city and the franchise could easily capitalize on this. Hous ton- Competition from all the major professional league franchises would make this city a challenge for the Predators. Appealing to casual fans would be important for the team, although diehard hockey fans who regularly attend Dallas Stars could attend games in Houston if they lived closer. Houston  usually doesn’t endure any harsh winters so this team could be positioned as a way to cool off and get chilly watching intense physical hockey games. After carefully reviewing all the possible candidate cities, our group decided that we would select Las Vegas as the next location for the Predators franchise. One of the main reasons why we chose this city is because it is devoid of any professional league teams already, so the franchise would be the only one in the area. The franchise could easily capitalize on this and create a niche for itself against the wide assortment of gambling and other entertainment in the city. The city is also one that is quickly growing, with a population of 1.7 million at the time of the article and a yearly growth rate of 11.5%. While seat capacity is limited, creating high demand for the NHL experience in the city would allow the franchise to potentially raise ticket prices, therefore increasing revenues and profits. Median family income is also the highest of all the U.S. candidate cities with $58,465, which could further justify charging higher ticket prices. As the â€Å"entertainment capital†, Las Vegas is a popular tourist destination in the country and the world. Having a team in this city could see casual and diehard sports fans making the trip to Las Vegas and make a complete experience out of attending an NHL game. After attending a game, fans can explore all the casinos and nightlife hotspots that make Las Vegas famous. In our opinion, Las Vegas is the most exciting prospect for an NHL team and with the potential to charge more premium ticket prices could see the franchise turn around and become profitable. Ticket Pricing: In order to determine the ticket price that the Predators should charge, assuming they move to Las Vegas, we will need to determine the fixed costs associated to running the team in this area. Fixed Costs Nashville Predators Sponsorships Player Salary 48,300,000 MGM Casino 5,000,000 Lease 1,500,000 Corporate 8,500,000 Broadcast costs 1,000,000 Total 13,500,000 Arena Operations 7,000,000 Total 57,800,000 Sponsor -13,500,000 Total FC 44,300,000 Above are the fixed costs associated with the Nashville Predators moving to Las Vegas. Broadcast costs along with lease costs were used from historical data. Total fixed costs amounted to $44,300,000 excluding sponsorships from the MGM casino and corporate historical sponsorships. Next our group chose to use the historical average prices from the Predators and the average prices from the NHL. We decided to use these prices as reference because we wanted to get a general feel as to where the Predators sit in their pricing scheme compared to the national average. From this analysis we decided that the Predators are charging too low for their ticket prices. We did not want to charge above the national average though, after the Predators move to Las Vegas they can then get a better feel for whether or not they should increase the price even more. So our group decided to charge $48.72 for regular admission and $112.10 for premium tickets. If the arena meets capacity of 19,300, this would bring in revenues of $529,175.14. We also wanted to make sure that the Predators are able to recoup the initial investment they will make. To do this we ran a break-even analysis to see how many tickets they will need to sell to cover their fixed costs. Below is our break-even analysis. Break-even Analysis Total FC 44,300,000 Ticket price /(48.72*.79)+(112.10*.21) 62.0298 Total Tickets 714172.8653 We weighted the ticket prices by their percent of interested fans in that price. Then took the fixed costs and divided them by the ticket price to come up with 714,173 tickets that must be sold in order to cover fixed costs. This is solely in ticket sales and does not include the revenue from future concessions and other revenues from the arena in Las Vegas. This number is slightly higher than the number of tickets the Predators sold last year that was 611,328. This number was extremely low compared to the league. Our group believes that our estimated 714,173 tickets is a plausible number if the Predators move to Las Vegas. Promotional and Advertising Plan: TV/Radio Promotions: TV and radio ads are aired typically on sports-related media. The viewers and listeners to these stations were males between the ages of 25 and 54. In Las Vegas the median age of residents is 34, which is right in the middle of the TV/Radio viewer age. Also Las Vegas is primarily male, coinciding with the viewers of sports radio and TV. We would hit hard in promoting the Predators though radio and TV. The demographic for this type of promotion is perfect and we believe we would be very successful using this media. Player Appearances: As the main demographic for player appearances is a younger child, we believe that this tactic can only be used for specific events that may hit the city of Las Vegas. Most likely we would have players appear at charity events, and other found raisers that are hosted in the city. This way they can get in touch with an older generation that better fits the demographic of Las Vegas. Corporate Mail Outs: We would use corporate mail outs in our strategy. As Las Vegas is already thriving in businesses that are mainly casinos, shows, and shopping, asking them for sponsorships and advertisements would be competition against our main sponsor MGM, also the hotel where the arena would be located. Fan Giveaways: Fan giveaways will be very useful in promoting the Predators. Las Vegas is a place where people come to WIN! Having giveaways for our main ticket purchasers, such as a free stay at the MGM Grand, or simply cash, would be very effective in keeping out current fans interested and satisfied while also attracting new fans with the hope of WINNING BIG! Online Advertising: Online advertising is a medium that is becoming more and more successful with the increased use of technology. As research stated, 68% of avid sports fans had used the Internet in the past 30 days. We would take full advantage of this less-costly way of promoting the Predators. The website for the Pr edators would need to be updated to coincide with the likes of the Las Vegas demographic, and the surrounding area. The site would need to be exciting and captivating as well as very easy to access. Our advertising would also have to appeal to the nation, as it would be seen on ESPN.com, TSN.ca and NHL.com, all of which are viewed nationally and internationally. Ticket Sales: With using TV/radio and Fan Giveaways as our main ways of promotion and advertising, these two mediums would be where most of the  Predators ticket sales would generate.  Cost of Plan: In order to use these two mediums to create the most hype and ticket sales, it is going to be costly. The predators would need to spend about $3.5 million and up on TV/radio advertising, in order to sell the number of tickets they need per game. If TV/radio advertising is successful then the Fan Giveaways can become less and less costly. If TV were successful then the Predators would need to spend from $0 to $500,000 to make up for the rest of ticket sales. If TV/radio advertising is less successful then they will need to spend from $750,000 to $1,000,000. If they go higher than these costs, research shows that in Las Vegas they will still attract the same amount of ticket sales as they would if the only spent $1 million. As we are not completely utilizing corporate mail outs and player appearances, combined these would cost the Predators a maximum of $200,000, but most likely the cost would be much less. As previously stated we would use online advertising. Las Vegas stays rather consistent with the number of tickets that are sold related to online advertising so the Predators would only need to spend a maximum of $700,000, after this amount, historically the same number of tickets have been sold. Below is a table that shows the maximum that the Predators would have to spend on advertising and promotion in Las Vegas. Maximum Cost of Promotion and Advertising TV/Radio 3,500,000 Giveaways 1,000,000 Online Ad 700,000 Appearances/Mail outs 200,000 Total Cost 5,400,000

Role of international Institutions in Mexico's Fiscal Development Case Study

Role of international Institutions in Mexico's Fiscal Development - Case Study Example The main authority on bringing economic change, therefore, lies with the indigenous political government. In the case of Mexico, the national government in the late 1980s was significantly concerned with the economic growth of the country but as the years slipped away, the commitment of the government declined so did the local living standard. Based on the above argument, it can be established that there is no need to change or develop new international trade institutional laws. But, the government is needed to get more attached to the notion of economic development. Still, the power to sponsor economic development of Mexico lies with local government. The attitude of the government is something that is needed to change and there is minimal requirement to modify rules and regulations of the trade associations. Furthermore, international institutions have nothing to do with hindrance or facilitation of growth but the locals are primarily accountable for the prevalent situation.  Ã‚  

Graduate Nurse Capabilities Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Graduate Nurse Capabilities - Essay Example I also complied with the different standards under the local OH & S policies in relation to emergency situations and incident reporting. In order to achieve this, I constantly updated myself about these policies and I reviewed said policies as I immersed myself in the nursing process. I also found out that based on the Buddy report, I would benefit from research on endoscopic procedures and diseases. I am eager to explore said areas of research. As an independent nurse, I was able to carry out independent nursing interventions by facilitating a physical, psycho-social, cultural and spiritual environment that was, in turn, able to secure the safety and security of assigned patients. I was able to work constructively with the other members of the health team. Based on the Buddy report, I was also able to communicate well with said members in the delivery of healthcare. Mastering different skills and capabilities like delegating, teaching, learning, and coordinating are just some of the skills which ensure a smooth transition for the graduate nurse into the nursing practice. Delegating is all about assigning the right people to the job; teaching focuses on health education of patients; learning is about continuing nursing education, and coordinating is about collaborating with other nurses and health professionals. I was able to advance my skills in these areas and I was able to learn other skills which are ultimately bound to assist in improving nursing practice and in gaining better patient outcomes.

Developing Countries Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Developing Countries - Essay Example They are also countries that facing problems of environmental issues, health, education, housing and many sectors of underdevelopment. A developing nation, is that nation that have low standard of living, especially in the Economic, Political and social basis. A country where its people are getting low income, witnessing inflation, poverty and other features can be refer to as Developing nation. These countries can also be called 'Underdeveloped'. An Economist (Gerard Chaliand) who wrote on Developing countries, where he defines what all about developing nations and their features states that "The economically underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America, considered as an entity with common characteristics, such as poverty, high birthrates, and economic dependence on the advanced countries". Some features of developing nations include highly dependent on foreign goods. These sorts of countries always finding market for the finishing goods of developed nations. While in the developing nations most of the Industries are collapse not functioning, properly. As a result, they depend solely on importing goods from abroad for their people. There high rates of poverty in such countries, wide range of poverty and diseases and many other features. Socially, the developing nations are found with high rates of... Politically and economically, the features of the developing nations include social conflicts that in many of these countries continue to sabotaging their economies. Additionally, another feature of developing nations are those nations that always preferring their economy toward the betterment of Developed countries. Since we have read so far on the features of developing nations, even though in a nutshell, there is a need now to begin discussions on the main subject of the essay. DEBTS CRISES IN DEVELOPING NATIONS According to research conducted on the debt crises in the developing nations, its started dated back to 80s. (Seamus O'Cleireacain) (1990). explained when the crises of debts began in developing nations. He said "The crisis emerged over a weekend in mid- August 1982, when Mexico informed the United States and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that it was unable to meet its debt payments. Soon, the crisis had engulfed other developing countries. It stalled forty years of economic growth in the Third World, producing the worse recession in Latin America since the 1930s. As the development process slowed, education and child welfare were among the budget items slashed in many countries, causing UNICEF to include the debt crisis among the factors contributing to a slowing in the decline in infant mortality. 1 UNICEF estimated that the slowdown in development had cost the lives of an additional half-million children, raising to fourteen million the number of under five-year-olds who die every year. The debt crisis also inflicted costs on developed country taxpayers and shareholders". At this point, it is important to state that it is noted that the origin of debts problems in developing nations begun since

Cancer Registry Annual Report Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Cancer Registry Annual Report - Coursework Example ology program will move, it evaluates the protocols and the quality of care available using both external and internal sources of data and puts forward recommendations that could help to bring about improvements to meet the required regulatory standards. The total number of patients treated for cancer this year was 590, of which 268 were male and 249 were female. Lung and breast cancer reported the highest incidence of cancer; among the males the highest incidences were of lung and colon cancer, while among the females, the highest incidences were of breast and cervical cancer. The largest number of all cancer types occurs between the ages of 41 to 60, followed by the ages 61 to 75. During the diagnosis stage, 262 cancer cases were localized, while 230 were regional. In most instances, i.e., 49 cases, diagnosis was made by bronchoscopy, while 22 were made by percutaneous biopsy. There has been a steady rise in the number of lung cancer cases from 2001 to 2005, with the steepest rise occurring between 2003-4. The most common age when a lung cancer diagnosis has been made is between the ages of 65 to 74. The Oncology standards at this hospital are quite high, because the primary purpose of the Oncology Committee is to direct and evaluate the Oncology program and to suggest recommendations for improvement. The organization has received commendation by the Commission on Cancer, which is also the reason why it has received funding. The hospital specializes in lung cancer, but various other forms of cancer are also treated. Mr. Johannson, the CEO has set achievement of quality as one of the most important organizational goals, which has led to the achievement of awards and accreditation for the hospital. The head of the Oncology program is Nancy Turlick and she has been the prime mover behind implementing these quality of care standards and based upon the results the hospital has achieved, the standards of care at the hospital have been revised. Hospital data is

Quality management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 3

Quality management - Essay Example In its quality management system, there is a continuous effort on improvement most probably on certain issues that concern about the customers and their interest about the quality of the actual products. As a result, Toyota invariably employs the move to study about its customers’ needs and the right thing to do in order to ensure market acceptance of its product offerings. In this entire process, quality management system cannot just be simply overlooked. Quality management ensures trust and reliability in offered products and services and even a potential market share for them. On the other hand, Volvo stresses out safety as its way of differentiating its product offerings. It has to do this as this is its main source of strength for its competitive advantage. The concern about safety on the other hand is another significant issue involving quality management especially on continuous quality improvement. Safety is such a broad concern but its bottom line especially in the case of Volvo is to strengthen the quality of its product offerings. Ensuring safety on its products requires continuous monitoring on the production and even from the acquisition of raw materials. Thus in the case of Volvo, there is a guaranteed quality assurance in whatever it does in order to deliver offerings with impeccable standard for safety. In other words, quality management ensures consistency in whatever an organization simply wants to achieve. BMW focuses on performance, which is another organizational concern associated with quality management system. In order to stay consistently in the market, BMW requires testing and monitoring the kind of performance its product and service offerings provide to its customers. In other words, along with the top of its priority is to provide a high value for customers. However, the bottom line of this goal is the continuous monitoring and implementation of the

Pumping Concrete Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Pumping Concrete - Essay Example [3] Conventional methods of placing concrete posed many problems to the engineers of the buildings. For this purpose the 'concrete pump' was invented to pump concrete from far away distances through tubes. Pumping concrete is more economical rather than transporting concrete from a mixing plant to formwork. A continuous feed of concrete can be placed at high speed with access to every part of the site and with no need of transportation. Concrete pumping is sometimes the only possible placing method where the job is inaccessible or the timescale of the construction work makes slower methods impractical. These days pumping is gaining popularity and the only thing that's holding it back is the number of accidents that have taken place while using concrete pumps. [5] When starting the pumping operation, the pumpers are met with a common problem. The pumping pipes are dry and are usually covered with a thin layer of cement from previous pumpings. While passing through the dry pipes the concrete will gradually dehydrate, creating a plug before reaching the end of the pipe. To solve this, the pump and pipeline must be grouted with about 500 liters of a cement slurry or rich mortar. And thereon pumping should be started immediately after grouting. This can be described in the following steps: [5] 1. Pour slurry or mortar into hopper while operating the pump slowly; 2. Discharge excess grout to waste, not into formwork; 3. Retain some grout in the hopper to be remixed with the first hopper full of concrete; 4. Fit the protecting grill on the hopper before loading concrete. When pumping is done downhill, tight plugs of damp cement bags or a sponge rubber balls should be placed before the grout to make sure that the walls of the pipe are properly lined. [5] Functionality of the Pumping Device In essence, a concrete pump places the mixed concrete at various sites by pumping the slurry. It comprises of a supporting arm which is projected at an operating position and used for positioning the conduit end of a pump conduit. A supporting arm with segments constitutes a component of the pump conduit. In order to achieve a higher lift, device provides the features that at least one of the supporting arm segments is adapted to be telescoped and can be transferred from a non-extended starting position to at least one extended position. [4] Three different kinds of pumping techniques are available to the manufacturers Boom Pump - Boom trucks are self-contained units consisting of a truck and frame, and the pump itself. Because of their reach, boom trucks often remain in the same place for an entire pour. This allows ready mix trucks to release their loads directly into the pumps hopper at one central location and helps to create a more efficient jobsite traffic flow. [1] Line Pumps - Line pumps are versatile, portable units typically used to pump not only structural concrete, but also grout, wet screeds, mortar, shotcrete, foamed concrete, and sludge. [1] Separate Placing Booms - Separate concrete placing booms can be used

The Role of Geology in Influencing Water Chemistry Essay Example for Free

The Role of Geology in Influencing Water Chemistry Essay Water is and remains one of the important wants of the people, animals and the nature at large. Without water, they would be no life. Water is an unusual compound which has unique physical properties, and this makes it the compound of life, yet it’s the most abundant compound in the earth’s biosphere. The chemistry of  water  deals with the fundamental chemical property and information about water. Water chemistry can elaborate in terms of the following subtitles: composition of water, Structure, and bonding, Molecular Vibration, as well as geological composition and properties of water among many other aspects of water chemistry (Krauskopf and Bird, 1994). Geology  is often responsible for how much water  filters below the zone of saturation, making the water table easy to measure. Light,  porous  rocks can hold more water than heavy,  dense  rocks. An area underlain with  pumice, a very light and porous rock, is more likely to hold a fuller aquifer and provide a clearer measurement for a water table. The water table of an area underlain with hard  granite  or  marble may be much more difficult to  assess (Krauskopf and Bird, 1994). Hypothesis: surficial geology controls the chemistry of surface waters Introduction Water quality has become one of the essential aspects in life, and it’s defined in terms of the chemical, biological and physical composition of the geological factor. The water quality of rivers, lakes and many other water source changes from one geographical location to another. This is due to difference in the geological composition of the places, i.e., the rocks beneath the earths surface are different and in turn different quality in water quality. However, various factors influence water chemistry in the world (Drever, 1982). One of such vital elements is ‘geology’. This is the science deals with the dynamics and physical history of the earths’, the rock that makes the earths crust, and the physical, chemical, and biological changes that the earth undergoes or has undergone. In other words, geology is the science entails the study of rock-solid Earth, the  rocks  of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change. This branch of scien ce is one of vital and major contributing factor in the water chemistry. In order to understand the impact of geology on the water chemistry, this paper will look into the ground water (Drever, 1982). Clear understanding of the nature of the bedrock layers of the region is essential as geology is in determining the quality and quantity of ground water that can be obtained from the underground at any given location. For example, in some parts of the earth, the bedrock consists of sedimentary layers of rocks that have profuse pore spaces between mineral grains. The rock layers can form creatively wide aquifers, or conduits for groundwater movement, that are of predictable depths, and from which apparently indefinite quantities of high-quality groundwater can be obtained. In such areas, groundwater is the clear way out for public water needs (Frape et al, 1984). Bedrock geology helps in determining the distribution and density of underground water-bearing fissures, as well as the nature  of the soils that are obtained from the rock weathering. Different types of rocks contain more or less fractures that may or may not be interconnected with each other. The degree of interconnection among fractures, and their overall ability to move water, has a great deal to do with how productive a water well will be that intersects the fractures. Different rocks also make different soils when they weather, and the type of soil influences its ability to absorb rainwater that falls on the surface, and transmit the water to bedrock fractures beneath (Cooke et al, 2012). The composition of the underground water as well as the surface water is dependent on natural factors, (geological, topographical, meteorological, hydrological, and biological) in the drainage basin and varies with seasonal differences in runoff volumes, weather conditions, and water levels. The quality is, however, affected by both natural and human influences. The most vital or importance of the natural influences is geological, hydrological and climatic, since this affects both quality and quantity of the water available. Underground water is held in the pore space of sediments such as sands or gravels or in the fissures of fractured rock such as crystalline rock and limestone. The rocky body containing the water is termed an aquifer and the upper water level in the saturated body is termed the water table. Typically, groundwater’s have a steady flow pattern. Velocity is governed mainly by the porosity and permeability of the material through which the water flows, and is often up to several orders of magnitude less than that of surface water, as a result mixing is poor (Cooke et al, 2012). The rock or sediment in an aquifer is denoted by the permeability and porosity, whereby permeability is the measure of the ease with which fluids passes through the rocks. On the other hand, porosity is the ratio of pores and fissure volume to the total volume of the rock. The chemical composition of the rocks greatly influences the chemical composition of water. The different types of aquifers explain this difference in water chemistry all over the places (John, 1990). Underground formations are three types, hard crystalline rocks, and consolidated sedimentary and unconsolidated sediments. The example of hard crystalline rocks includes granites, gneisses, quartzite’s, schist’s, and a few rocks from volcanic rocks. These rocks have little or no porosity but it is further enhanced by weathering. For example, ground water in volcanic formations in regions of recent volcanic activity is mostly inhibited with fluoride, and boron elements, which makes it unsuitable uses. Chemical properties of the bedrock greatly influence the chemical properties and water chemistry. For example, water acidity is highly determined by the drift of the bedrock geology. The following example examines the influence of bedrock and soils on water acidity. When the bedrock constitutes of carbonates, the solution of the minerals assimilates H+ ions and hence acidifying water as water percolates through the rocks. CaCO3 + H+ = Ca2+ +HCO3 this results to acidified wa ter (John, 1990). Effect of Total Dissolved Solids in Groundwater A body of saturated rocks through where water can easily move is known as an aquifer. Aquifers contain rocks such as sandstone, conglomerate, fractured limestone and unconsolidated sand and gravel which are both permeable and porous. In addition, fractured volcanic rocks, i.e. columnar basalts also make good aquifers (John, 1990). Underground water tastes dissimilar from one place to the other or else at different times of the year for several reasons. In exploring those reasons, the paper looks first consider why water from one well might be different from another well, even one that is close by. What dictates groundwater taste is the quantity and type of dissolved minerals in it. In other words, this isn’t pure water as pure water has no dissolved minerals and hence does not occur naturally. The amount and type of minerals that are dissolved in water is what gives waters their initial taste. There are different factors that control the dissolved minerals in the ground water. (I) The type of minerals, making up the aquifer, (II) the chemical state of the ground water, (III), the duration or length of time which water makes contact with the minerals and the rocks (Frape et al, 1984). As the rain water passes through different types aquifers, it results in a different chemical composition of water. Almost all groundwater comes from precipitation that soaks into the soil and passes down to the aquifers. Within the aquifer, the groundwater moves not as an underground stream, but rather seeping between and around individual soil and rock particles. Rainwater has a slightly acidic pH; therefore it tends to dissolve solid minerals in the soil and in the aquifers. Sandstone, limestone and basalt all have different minerals. Therefore it is rational to expect groundwater in contact with these different geologic materials to have different chemical compositions {factor (1) above} and therefore different tastes. In addition, the length the groundwater is in contact with the minerals, the greater the extent of its reaction with those minerals and the higher will be the content of dissolved minerals (John, 1990). The table below can be used to illustrate the effect of mineral in water hence determining water chemistry. The table illustrates typical natural water compositions, from rainwater to seawater, groundwater in different aquifers, to groundwater that has been in contact with the aquifer for different periods of time. Table 1.0 A B C D E F G H Ca 0.7 0.65 240 399 145 6.6 3.10 4530 Mg 1.1 0.14 7200 1340 54 1.1 0.7 162 Na 9.5 0.56 83500 10400 ~27 ~37 3.02 2730 K 0.11 4060 370 ~2 ~3 1.08 32.0 Bicarbonate 4 250 27 620 75 20 56 Sulfate 7.5 2.2 16400 186 60 15 1.0 1.0 Chloride 17 0.57 140000 19020 52 17 0.5 12600 Silica 0.3 48 3 21 103 16.4 8.5 TDS 38 4.7 254000 35000 665 221 35 20330 PH 5.4 7.5 6.6 6.2 6.5 Table 1; key Examples of the composition of natural water from a variety of locations and environments (all concentrations given in milligrams/liter). TDS = total dissolved solids. A dash (-) indicates that the component was not detected or the water was not analyzed for this constituent. A tilde (~) indicates that the analysis is approximate only (John, 1990). Key to the Analyses: (A) Rainwater from Menlo Park, California; (B) Average rainwater from sites in North Carolina and Virginia; (C) Great Salt Lake, Utah; (D) Average seawater; (E) Groundwater from limestone of the Supai Formation, Grand Canyon; (F) Groundwater from volcanic rocks, New Mexico; (G) Groundwater from a spring, Sierra Nevada Mountains: short residence time; (H) Groundwater from metamorphic rocks in Canada: long-residence time. Chemical State of Ground Water A large amount of the seasonal and natural water quality disparities we observe are the result of small but considerable alterations in the chemical state of groundwater. The chemical state of groundwater is generally defined in terms of parameters such as, the temperature, oxidation-reduction potential, and PH. These three factors are greatly influenced by chemical reactions between the aquifer materials and the ground water, hence changing the water chemistry in the common water bodies such as lakes, rivers, oceans, etc. the chemical composition of the aquifer greatly controls the physical properties of water such as color, hardness, taste, odor and appearance (John, 1990). Table 1.1 Water Characteristics and Its Causes (John, 1990) Characteristics or Symptoms Cause(s) Hardness: Low suds production with soap, mineral scale developed in water heater and plumbing High concentrations of calcium and magnesium Color: Water has a color other than clear Red/Brown: iron Black: manganese or organic matter Yellow: dissolved organic matter such as tannins Taste: Metallic or mineral taste Metallic: dissolved metals such as iron and manganese Mineral taste: high concentration of common minerals such as sodium, Chloride, sulfate, calcium, etc. Odor: Musty or rotten egg smell Musty: algae or bacterial growth pipes or well Rotten egg: hydrogen sulfide Appearance: cloudy with or without color Suspended mineral matter or microorganisms Control the chemical composition of groundwater. For example, the total dissolved solids (TDS) in groundwater, largely derived from aquifer minerals that dissolve in groundwater, will change significantly as a function of temperature and PH. Temperature. At any given temperature, there is a specific concentration of a dissolved mineral constituent in the groundwater that is in contact with that mineral. The actual concentration is temperature dependent, e.g., at higher temperatures, groundwater can dissolve more of the mineral. Even changes in groundwater temperature of only 5 to 10 C can cause detectable changes in TDS (John, 1990). The Natural pH of Groundwater, The pH is a determination of the acidity of groundwater: the lower the pH value, the more acidic the water is and vice versa (a measure of the hydrogen ion (H+) availability). At a pH of 7, water is said to be neutral. Natural rainwater is slightly acidic because it combines with carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, forming carbonic acid (H2CO3) according to the reaction (1) H2O + CO2 = H2CO3. Some of the carbonic acid in the rainwater disassociates or breaks down according to the reaction (2), H2CO3 = HCO- + H+ producing bicarbonate (HCO-) and H+. This in turn reduces the PH of the rain water. In addition, the acidic water that is formed is able to dissolve more of the minerals in the aquifers hence greatly contributing to the change of water chemistry. The more amount of CO2 in the atmosphere the more acidic the water becomes (Verdonschot, 2013). Composition of the Earth’s Crust, The relative abundance of elements in the crustal material of the Earth has been a subject of much interest to chemists for many years. Although the subject of natural-water chemistry is only indirectly concerned with these averages, a knowledge of rock composition is essential to understanding the chemical composition of natural water, and it is therefore desirable to discuss the subject briefly. The Earth is generally considered to be made up of an iron-rich core surrounded by a thick mantle made up of magnesium- and iron-rich silicates and a thin outer crust made up of rather extensively reworked silicates and other minerals. Reversible and Irreversible Reactions in Water Chemistry, Many kinds of chemical reactions can be important in establishing and maintaining the composition of natural water. Concepts that are appropriate for evaluating these processes differ somewhat depending on the nature of the reactions involved. Therefore, some at tention needs to be given to reaction types here, although this cannot be a rigorous classification scheme (Verdonschot, 2013). Different types of rocks and the impact to the water chemistry There are three major types or classes of rocks, namely, sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic. The three are different from each other as they also have varying differences in terms of impact to the water chemistry. To start with, sedimentary rocks are rocks formed from particles of pebbles, shells, sand and other fragments. The different particles are brought together and hence called sediment, whereby they accumulate for a long time and in layers over a long time forming a rock (Verdonschot, 2013). Generally, sedimentary rocks are fairly soft and may in turn break or crumble easily. You can often see sand, pebbles, or stones in the rock and it are usually the only type that contains fossils. Examples of this rock type include conglomerate and limestone among many other rocks. These rocks contain a lot of minerals much of which are soluble in water. As the rain water passes through the rocks, the minerals are absorbed and in turn contributing to the changing or different water chemi stry from one region to the other. For example, carbonate-cemented sandstone that is composed largely of silica in the form of quartz might yield water containing mostly calcium and bicarbonate ions (Geology.com, 2014). One type of rocks under the class sedimentary is the chemical sedimentary rocks. This is formed when minerals dissolved in the water starts to precipitate forming a rock of minerals. However, not all minerals do precipitate and in turn become part of the water in the lakes and rivers. Many resistant sedimentary rocks are permeable and may, therefore, easily receive and transmit solutes acquired by water from some other type of rock. In the course of moving through the sedimentary formations, several kinds of alteration processes may occur that may influence the composition of the transmitted water (Verdonschot, 2013). Fig 1.0 sedimentary rock image (Geology.com, 2014) The 2nd type of rocks is the Metamorphic, these are rocks formed under the surface of the earth from the changes which are caused by intense heat and pressure. Rocks formed through this process are mostly denoted by ribbon like layers and may also have shiny crystals that grow slowly over time. A good example of this rock type includes gneiss and marble. Fig 1.1 an image of a metamorphic rock (Geology.com, 2014) Lastly, there is the ‘Igneous’. These are rocks formed when molten rock deep within the earth (magma) cools and hardens. This cooling and hardening may occur either inside the earth’s crust or else it blows up onto the earth’s surface from volcanoes (in this case, it is called lava). When the lava cools very quickly, there are no crystals form and the rock looks shiny and glasslike. Occasionally gas bubbles are ensnared in the rock all through the cooling process, leaving tiny holes and spaces in the rock (Buynevich, 2011). Examples of these rocks include basalt and obsidian. Igneous rocks consist predominantly of silicate minerals. As the solutions move through the soil and the underlying rock, the composition of the water should be expected to change. Rocks of igneous origin may be classified as extrusive or intrusive. Both the extrusive and intrusive rocks are further classified by geologists on the basis of chemical and mineral composition, texture, and other characteristics. Rocks of the same chemical and mineral composition have different names, but tend to yield similar weathering products to the water. Fig 1.2 images of an igneous rock (granite) (Geology.com, 2014) Many of the rocks in the three classes contain numerous chemicals which contribute to the defining of water chemistry in one way or another. In ground water composition, seven solutes are the most commonly found salts in metals. These seven solutes make up nearly 95 percent of all water solutes (Buynevich, 2011). These salts include calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), sodium (Na), potassium (K), chloride (Cl), sulfate (SO4), and bicarbonate (HCO3). Sodium is derived from the dissolution of silicate minerals, such as plagioclase feldspars, which make up some of the sand and gravel that fill the water basin. Potassium is derived from the dissolution of some silicate minerals in granitic rocks and from reactions with some clay minerals. Few reactions remove these seven solutes from ground water. However, some minerals, such as calcite CaCO3, can precipitate from solution to form a solid phase (Buynevich, 2011). Conclusion The interpretation of the water chemistry data has become vital and most reliably made within the conceptual framework on the ground water system that has been derived from several additional types of hydrologic and geologic data, such as water levels, that indicate general directions of ground-water flow. One of the major aspects of the geology of the human is the fact that it helps in maintaining the quality of water supplies. This helps understand the sources of water and in turn protect them from pollution. In addition, it helps in determining the suitability for various uses such as drinking, farming among many other uses (Dissanayake Chandrajith, 2009). The chemistry of lakes, rivers, oceans, and stream water in many regions is strongly associated with the character and circulation of geologic materials in the watershed. For example, the dominance of glacial till and granitic gneiss rock in the North and East of Big Moose Lake region results in a geologically sensitive terrain distinguished by low alkalinity and chemical compositions of the surface water with only slightly modified from ambient precipitation. On the contrary, widespread deposits of substantial glacial till in the lower part of the system (e.g. Moss-Cascade Valley) allow for much infiltration of precipitation into the groundwater system where weathering reactions increase alkalinity and extensively alters water chemistry. In references to the hypothesis, ‘surficial geology controls the chemistry of surface waters’ holds true as seen in the water composition of different regions as the water chemistry and watershed being determined by the geological facto rs (Dissanayake Chandrajith, 2009). References Drever, J.I., 2000. The Geochemistry of Natural Waters. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 388p. Frape, S.K., Fritz, P., and McNutt, R.H., 1984. Water-rock interaction and chemistry of Groundwater from the Canadian Shield. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, v. 48, pp. 1617-1627. Heath, R.C., 1990. Basic Ground-Water Hydrology. U.S. Geological Survey Water-Supply Paper 2220, 84p. Hem, J.D., 1992. Study and Interpretation of the Chemical Characteristics of Natural Water. U.S. Geological Survey Water-Supply Paper 2254. Krauskopf, K.B., with Bird, D.K., 1994. Introduction to Geochemistry, 3 ed. McGraw-Hill, rd New York, 640p. Dissanayake, C. B., Chandrajith, R. (2009).  Introduction to medical geology: Focus on tropical environment. Berlin: Springer. Buynevich, I. V. (2011).  Geology and geoarchaeology of the Black Sea Region: Beyond the flood hypothesis. Boulder, Colo: Geological Society of America. Allanson, B. R. (1990).  Inland waters of southern Africa: An ecological perspective. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Gunn, A. M., Babbitt, B. (2001).  The impact of geology on the United States: A reference guide to benefits and hazards. Westport, Conn. [u.a.: Greenwood Press. Rost, A. L., Fritsen, C. H., Davis, C. J. (2011). Distribution of freshwater diatom Didymosphenia geminata in streams in the Sierra Nevada, USA, in relation to water chemistry and bedrock geology.  Hydrobiologia,  665(1), 157-167. Verdonschot, P. P., Spears, B. B., Feld, C. C., Brucet, S. S., Keizer-Vlek, H. H., Borja, A. A., Johnson, R. R. (2013). A comparative review of recovery processes in rivers, lakes, estuarine and coastal waters.  Hydrobiology,  704(1), 453-474. Cooke, G. M., Chao, N. L., Beheregaray, L. B. (2012). Natural selection in the water: freshwater invasion and adaptation by water colour in the Amazonian pufferfish.  Journal Of Evolutionary Biology,  25(7), 1305-1320. Dittman, J., Driscoll, C. (2009). Factors influencing changes in mercury concentrations in lake water and yellow perch ( Perca flavescens) in Adirondack lakes.  Biogeochemistry,  93(3), 179-196. Geology.com. News and Information about Geology and Earth Science. Retrieved from: http://geology.com/ John D. Hem. (1990) Study and Interpretation of the Chemical Characteristics of Natural Water. Third Edition. Department Of The Interior William P. Clark, Secretary U.S. Geological Survey Dallas L. Peck, Director Source document

Certain responsibilities Essay Example for Free

Certain responsibilities Essay In school, as in life, everyone has certain responsibilities. The Principal is responsible for overseeing the efficient running of the school. The teachers are responsible for seeing that school rules are obeyed, that their lesson plans are well written and lessons prepared. Teachers are also responsible for seeing that each of their students learn the material that is presented. Students are responsible for many things as well. All students are responsible for making sure they are ready to learn. This includes having the necessary equipment to do the job of learning. Each student is responsible for having a all their school materials with them at all times. When a student shows up to class unprepared it makes learning very difficult. Unprepared students also make learning hard for people around them as they disturb others trying to find a pen or borrow a book. Students who come to class unprepared miss important information. While they are looking for a book, or a pen or their homework; knowledge is passing them by. Being unprepared is a sign of immaturity. Students who come to class without a pen are demonstrating that they are not ready and they are irresponsible. They rely on others to take care of their needs. This is unfair to others who have their own lives to take care of. If you don’t want to be treated like a child, you must begin taking responsibility for yourself. This starts with being a responsible student. It’s time for you to step up and take care of your own responsibilities.

Auditor Predecessor Successor

Auditor Predecessor Successor Question: What is the purpose of predecessor-successor auditor communications? Which party, the predecessor or successor auditor, has the responsibility for initiating these communications? Briefly summarize the information that a successor auditor should obtain from the predecessor auditor. The purpose of the predecessor-successor auditor communications is to help an auditor determine if a firm should engage with a new client. This communication will inform the auditor about the history of the client with the previous auditor and possibly expose some information that would suggest that accepting this client is not in the best interest of the firm. In recent times it has become important to carefully choose with whom a firm engages in an agreement with for representing them as their auditor. Not only is the firms reputation at stake but they can be held liable for their clients fraudulent activities. The Auditing Standards Board has issued a Statement on Auditing Standards Number 84 in October of 1997. SAS No. 84 replaced the SAS No. 7 which has the same title and was written to update the statement to the present environment. SAS No. 84 defines the required communications between the predecessor and successor auditor before accepting an engagement; what to do when the predecessor limits the responses to the successor; contains sample client consent and an acknowledgement letter and a successor auditor acknowledgement letter. Many of the CPA firms use caution when accepting new clients and go through a detailed procedure before accepting a new client. This is necessary to protect the firm from potential future liabilities based on their clients activities. SAS No. 84 made several modifications or improvements to SAS No. 7 which include communications prior to engaging with the client, discusses the usage and types of working papers, discusses the use of different types of correspondence letters for the predecessor-successor with examples, and outlines actions that the successor should follow if the financial statements are found to be misstated. This Statement was then amended by no. 93 because the statement didnt address the case where an auditor started an audit but didnt complete it. SAS No. 93 clarifies the definition of the predecessor auditor to include this situation. The definition was refined to include any auditor who is engaged to perform an audit but does not complete it. In the ZZZZ Best case study, Greenspan was an independent auditor that completed an audit of the ZZZZ Best Company in 1986. He used analytical techniques to look at the financial data and he confirmed the existence of their jobs by reviewing their documents. After completion of the audit, Minkow that owned the ZZZZ Best Company dismissed Greenspan and retained Ernst Whinney as the companys auditor. A congressional subcommittee was probing into the predecessor-successor communications that occurred when this transition occurred. When the congressional subcommittee asked what information he provided to the successor auditor, Greenspan was said â€Å"Nothing. I did there was nothing because they never got in tough with me. Its protocol for the new accountant to get in touch with the old accountant. They never got in touch with me, and its still a mystery to me.† According to SAS no. 84, the successor cannot accept the new client until they have communicated with the predecessor and have reviewed their responses. Even though the successor is required to initiate the communication, the predecessor is required to respond. The predecessor is required to get permission from the client before providing any information about the client. This means that there is a possibility that the predecessor will state that they will not be providing any information but they must respond stating this. If the predecessor doesnt provide any information, this most likely means that the client doesnt want them to disclose some potentially harmful information about the client and raises some concerns about accepting the new client. In the ZZZZ Best Company case, Ernst Whinney said that they communicated with Greenspan prior to accepting ZZZZ Best as an audit client. They didnt state any details related to the communication and Greenspan did not confirm this communication. Even if Ernst Whinney did initiate communication with Greenspan, given that neither one confirmed the details of what was communicated means that Ernst Whinney didnt follow requirement of reviewing the predecessor responses before accepting the client. The successor auditor should obtain information that will help decide whether to accept the client as their auditor. The type of information that the successor auditor should be inquiring about is related to the integrity of the management and any disagreements that the predecessor had with the management over accounting or auditing procedures. If theres has been issues with management integrity or concerns about their integrity from the predecessor auditor, it most likely will be an ongoing concern which may cause problems in the future. Also, if the predecessor auditor had disagreements with the client about accounting or auditing procedures then it would best to discuss these procedures with the client before starting the engagement with the client. Another item that the successor auditor should request is access to the predecessors working papers. â€Å"SAS no. 84 includes a list of the working papers ordinarily made available to the successor, including documentation of planning, internal control, audit results and other matters of continuing accounting and auditing significance†.1 The predecessor may limit the access to this working papers for reasons such as confidentiality agreements or litigations. These working papers provide the good insight into the client and give exposure to the predecessor and clients working arrangements. They will be the fastest and most detailed information for evaluating the client. When responding to the successor after the initial communication, the predecessor may request a written agreement disclosing the terms of what they disclose. They may request that the successor keep the information confidential and agree not to engage in litigations against the predecessor related to the material disclosed. Another item they should discuss is the reasons for the change in auditors. This information could show some insight into any management integrity issues if the predecessor auditor withdrew as the auditor. The successor will need to document the communications with the predecessor. They should document when the communications occurred, the results of the communications, and details of what material was disclosed. Even though the communications may be oral instead of written, it is good practice to document the details of what communications were made and the nature of the communications. SAS No. 84 doesnt require the documentation of this communications but the successor auditors working papers should show the details of communications that occurred. The predecessor-successor auditor communications is the key to determining if the firm should accept the new client. This communication will allow significant information to be gathered in determining whether to proceed into an agreement or not. The success auditor must initiate the communication with the predecessor. The completion of this exchange of information is vital to protect the firm from potential future liabilities based on their clients activities.

The Truth About Partial-Birth Abortion :: Persuasive Essay, Argumentative

The Truth About Partial-Birth Abortion Three Works cited On June 28, 2000, Justice Clarence Thomas of the US Supreme Court explained a partial-birth abortion in his dissent re the court's ruling which overturned Nebraska's ban on such abortions: "After dilating the cervix, the physician will grab the fetus by its feet and pull the fetal body out of the uterus into the vaginal cavity. At this stage of development, the head is the largest part of the body. [. . .] the head will be held inside the uterus by the woman's cervix. While the fetus is stuck in this position, dangling partly out of the woman's body, and just a few inches from a completed birth, the physician uses an instrument such as a pair of scissors to tear or perforate the skull. The physician will then either crush the skull or will use a vacuum to remove the brain and other intracranial contents from the fetal skull, collapse the fetus' head, and pull the fetus from the uterus." (Thomas) Justic Thomas' statement describes the surrealistic administration of partial-birth abortion, or the near-complete delivery and then puncture-killing of the baby. Most people's consciences do not disturb them re this procedure because they do not fully understand that the killing occurs when the baby has been almost entirely delivered. A fully viable baby is killed! Regarding this approach to abortion, a common misunderstanding is reflected by a corrective letter to the Editor of the Wall Street Journal on May 14, 2001, which attempted to right certain wrong statements from a Journal article about partial-birth abortion: The Journal has informed its readers that partial-birth abortion is a "rare" procedure, "typically performed when the life of the mother is at risk, or the fetus is determined to have severe abnormalities" ("Drive to Ban Abortion Procedure Slows," April 27.) But those claims, fabricated by pro-abortion advocacy groups in 1995, had been thoroughly discredited by early 1997. The Journal said that "critics . . . contend the procedure sometimes is used in less dire circumstances." Actually, it was abortionists and their paid spokespersons who admitted that partial-birth abortion is routinely used for purely elective abortions, usually in the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy. For example, Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, told The New York Times that "in the vast majority of cases, the procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus" (Feb.

The Stone Angel :: essays research papers

The Stone Angel Event by event, memory by memory the scales fall from Hagar's eyes until she sees clearly her own nature. No longer blaming others, she dies courageously by being fully responsible for her own life. What are the stages of Hager's enlightenment. The novel The Stone Angel portrays an image of a ninety-year-old woman, Hagar Currie, who confronts her past of personal failures in an attempt for rejuvenation before death. Hagar has lead a life dominated by authority and memories of whom she is expected to be. As she goes through life she continually tries to escape from her fears and gain acceptance. Through events and journeys, Hagar is able to release herself from the restrictions that have prevented her from leading a satisfactory life. Thus, to reconcile with herself and her fate, Hagar must flee from three domestic confinements: her father, her husband and her eldest son. As a child, Hagar was hampered by the pride, social standards and disciplines of her father, Jason Currie. Hagar's life had been dominated by the authority of her father and that is what drove her away from him. Jason Currie was a very proud, self-made man who pushed his values on his children. It is easily seen that many of the father's traits belong, also, to his daughter, such as his pride and stubbornness. Hagar is often closely compared to the stone angel that stands over her mother's grave, doubly blind. It is for this reason that Hagar lived a joyless life for which she was unable to express herself. Jason Currie was excessively caught up in his own dynasty, his image, and was determined to have his children uphold this image. He wanted his children, especially Hagar, to display his pride and behave at the level of his standards. Hager's emotional reactions and superficial outlook were determined by the views expressed by her father's examples and reinforced by punishment. With a father who will tolerate no weakness of any kind, Hagar learned how not to express any emotions. Such as when Hagar says "Oh, look! The funniest wee things, scampering" (Pg.9) while looking at the sultanas, her father's commodities. This was an insult to her father's reputation and pride and makes it known through punishment. However, no matter how much he strikes her hands she refuses to cry. It is at this point that the reader sees how much like her father she really is.

Comment Cuisiner Son Mari a L’africaine: How-to Manual or Cautionary Tale

De tous les arts, l'art culinaire est celui qui nourrit le mieux son homme. – Pierre Dac Calixthe Beyala was born in Cameroon in 1961. She was very disturbed by the extreme poverty of her surroundings. She went to school in Douala, and she excelled in Mathematics. Calixthe Beyala traveled widely in Africa and Europe before settling in Paris, where she now lives with her daughter. Beyala has published prolifically, and her most recent novel, which came out earlier this year, is called La Plantation.Beyala’s novel Comment cuisiner son mari a l'africaine appeared in the year 2000, published by Albin Michel. It is similar in structure to Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate, where the narrative is interrupted by the recipes which figure in the plot line. In her book, Beyala includes twenty-four of the recipes which her heroine Aissatou prepares to attract her neighbor and compatriot, Souleymane Bolobolo. In this way the book serves as a how-to manual, as its title sugg ests, on how to seduce, marry and keep a husband by cooking for him.The book begins with a prologue in the form of a legend where a woman arrives at the remote home of the recluse, Biloa. She announces that she has dreamed of him since she was a little girl, and that she has always known that they would marry. Biloa protests that he isn't the one she is seeking, repeating â€Å"Ce n'est pas moi†, but the woman tempts him with food so Biloa admits his identity, â€Å"C'est peut-etre moi,† and takes the woman and the basket of food into his house. This, according to the legend, is how Biloa came to be a member of the society of men.This prologue does, indeed, prefigure the struggles of Aissatou, our novel's heroine, who is a une dame-pipi28 caught between her identity as a Parisian and as an African. Fed up with romantic disappointments, she has chosen her neighbor Bolobolo to be her husband, though she hasn't really even met him. Aissatou, who habitually eats only three grated carrots for her dinner, and always takes her tea without sugar in order to maintain her slim figure goes to a marabout for advice on how to seduce Bolobolo, and is provoked by the other women that are also waiting there for advice.According to them, Aissatou's problem is that she is too skinny, and they lament the fact that â€Å"ces filles d'aujourd'hui ne savent meme pas cuisiner†¦.. et ca se veut des femmes. â€Å"29 Aissatou takes this all to heart and armed with the recipes she learned from her mother and grandmother, she attacks her neighbor on the culinary front. She begins by bringing â€Å"beignets aux haricots rouges† to Bolobolo's elderly mother who is suffering from a mental illness, and then continues tempting her neighbor with other exotic and spicy dishes.Aissatou is not unopposed, however, and deals with her rival, Bijou, by again eclipsing her performance in the kitchen. Eventually, Aissatou does seduce Bolobolo, and after his mother's death, t hey do marry. But the story doesn't end here. In an epilogue, the reader gets a glimpse of Aissatou and Bolobolo's marriage twenty years later. Aissatou admits that she cooks to save her marriage, which is constantly imperiled by her husband's infidelity.But, as her mother had told her, â€Å"There comes a time when one must prefer one's marriage to one's husband,† and so Aissatou sacrifices her pride and tends her relationship in the kitchen even though she realizes that her husband is an adulterous coward. The epilogue leaves a bitter taste at the end of such a delicious novel, but it keeps it honest, and doesn't allow it to seem like the simple re-telling of the legend of Biloa. Whereas the themes of food and cooking often serve as expressions of nostalgia in other novels, in Beyala's book, food is a language spoken by the different characters.Aissatou hears her mother's voice prescribing certain dishes to mend a broken heart and other dishes to soothe herself and her fami ly, for as she says, â€Å"Ventre plein n'a point de conscience. â€Å"30Her daughter, however, doesn't initially have the same reaction when feeling low and instead she makes herself a bowl of ‘veritable soupe chinoise en sachet. ‘ This means that prior to her decision to seduce Bolobolo by cooking for him, the only cooking that Aissatou undertakes is nothing more than adding water to a dried powder and heating it up.The fact that the dried powder is identified as ‘real’ and ‘Chinese’ point to the fact that it is really neither. Aissatou is not concerned with her food’s quality or ethnicity, and cares only about its convenience and calorie count. In the course of the novel, Aissatou will give up her proclivity for these ‘inauthentic’ foods and begin to enjoy the foods of West Africa prescribed by her mother and other African characters. In Beyala’s book, African food is imbued with nearly magical qualities. Yes, it does put meat on the bones of those who enjoy it, but it also excites the senses, and inflames the passions of those who eat it.Moreover, the true connoisseurs and sages of African food are all women. Even when Aissatou goes to consult a marabout about her love life, it is the women who actually reveal her ‘diagnosis. ’ Maimouna, who is known as ‘la cheftaine-reine des cuisines† amongst the women at the marabout’s apartment says that Aissatou’s problem is that she is too thin, and that a certain spicy shrimp dish will always attract a man. Once Aissatou decides to begin cooking African food in order to achieve her goal of seducing Bolobolo, she is also able to influence other situations through her cooking.She decides to provoke a macho response in her passive male best friend and prepares a jus de gingembre, a drink formulated to send him into a frenzy of desire, just to see what will happen. When confronted by her angry rival, mademoiselle Bi jou, she cooks a bouillie de mil for her to show that she is civilized and in control of the situation. Later, angered by Bijou's assessment of her relationship with Bolobolo, she also takes revenge on him by putting a laxative in a favorite dish of his. And of course, Aissatou's prime objective, clinched by her pepe-soupe aux poissons, is to arouse an appetite for passion within Bolobolo.Aissatou is speaking through her cooking, revealing her desires and fears, using food to express those things which she cannot explicitly state. In addition to its function as a way to provoke a physical response in the eater, food acts as an important cultural identifier in this novel. Through it we see the transformation of Aissatou from Parisian, back to African and from white, back to black. In other words, she effectuates a reverse migration, and food and cooking are the vehicle that she uses to bring herself back to her roots.Though this migration is easy to track, as she embraces her motherà ¢â‚¬â„¢s attitudes toward food, cooking and even marriage, it is more difficult to find Aissatou’s point of departure. In the beginning, Aissatou’s very racial and ethnic identity is called into question by Beyala’s own publisher’s blurb on the back of the novel itself. It describes her as  « une Parisienne pure black en proie au tourments de l’amour.  »31 But Aissatou claims that her self-imposed exile in France has made her forget the fact that she is black and that she doesn’t know when she became white.She admits that she has become white by imitating the thin, white Parisian women who are, as she is, completely caught up in the constant pursuit of beauty that is calculated to please men. She realizes that she has adopted a foreign mentality when it comes to her own body image and describes herself thus: â€Å"Moi, je suis une negresse blanche et la nourriture est un poison mortel pour la seduction. Je fais chanter mon corps en eplu chant mes fesses, en rapant mes seins, convaincue qu'en martyrisant mon estomac, les divinites de la sensualite s'echapperont de mes pores. 32It is interesting to note the use of the kitchen techniques, which indicate how previously her only cooking projects served to keep her thin. She combines these techniques where she literally scrapes her body until it is thin with words like martyr and divinity, playing into the idea that the denial of food in order to remain thin is a somehow sacred task. This is a long-standing dialectic, where women align divinity and asceticism when that same asceticism really represents a societal imperative to conform to ideals of beauty.This statement is a declaration of success; she has martyred her body in order to be desirable, and therefore white. Though Aissatou admits that she diets constantly and obsessively, like other Parisian women, she also lies about what she eats, just for the sake of being cruel. When asked about her diet by an apparently jealous overweight woman, Aissatou joyfully tells her that she has, since her birth, eaten, â€Å"le coq au vin, arrose d’un bon beaujolais nouveau; les epaules d’agneau aux champignon noirs, le ris de veau a la creme fraiche et le couscous mouton a la tunisienne. 33Of course, it is completely untrue that she ever indulges in such rich food, and certainly doubtful that she ate these traditional French dishes as a child in Cameroon. It is worth noting the inclusion of Tunisian couscous with the list of very traditional French food. Couscous has entered the repertory of French foods and is a common dish, despite its colonial origins. Though one may argue about the ‘authenticity’ of a Parisian â€Å"couscous a la Tunisienne† and how it plays on French ideas of exoticism, it is undeniably a part of French cuisine.This is in contrast to sub-Saharan African cuisine, which is much more difficult to find in the capital. Though you can eat couscous in every arrondissement, you would be hard pressed to find many restaurants that serve food from West Africa or the provisions necessary to make them at home. With this book, Beyala presents a fictionalized cookbook, and if the intrepid home cook should retrace the steps of the heroine, it could even serve as a guide for shopping for the ingredients in the recipes.As mentioned previously, this book’s structure is similar to other popular novels where recipes for the dishes prepared by characters are included, like Frances Mayes’, Under the Tuscan Sun, and Laura Esquivel’s, Like Water for Chocolate. But in these novels, the recipes are most often a part of the narration itself and sometimes are even recounted by one character to another, mimicking the traditional way that cooking recipes are transmitted, orally, from one cook to another, most often mother to daughter.In Beyala’s book, which features African characters who themselves benefited from the oral traditi on of passing down culinary knowledge, Beyala’s chooses to completely disconnect the recipes from the text, placing them on a separate page at the end of the chapter, and printing them like a traditional recipe that could be found in any cookbook or magazine article. Also, Beyala’s book differs from Mayes’ and Esquivel’s because their novels are both set in a time or place that is foreign to the reader.Esquivel’s novel is set during the Mexican revolution, and Mayes’ is set in Italy, and their settings automatically place them in a foreign and/or exotic locale. Despite this fact, the reader can easily recreate the recipes that their characters make, thereby exoticising themselves by their appropriation of the foreign meal. In contrast, Beyala’s book is both more accessible in its setting, and less accessible to the home cook. Comment cuisiner son mari a l’africaine is set in the present-day French capital and is completely reco gnizable in terms of its location and lifestyle.But re-creating the recipes that Aissatou makes is nearly impossible, because many of the ingredients listed in these recipes are not translated or even described. Though it would seem that this cookbook is intended for other immigrant women to use in re-creating dishes from West Africa, the lack of information about ingredients or possible substitutions runs counter to other cookbooks with similar propositions. Therefore, the status of the book as a manual is questionable, since it is not clear that one can even follow the recipes.Beyala’s book may just be using the recipes as other novels use illustrations. They are glimpses of a foreign culture provided by the author in order to pique the interest of the reader, just as an illustration does. Beyala’s location of the text in Paris is key in the novel, because it allows her to set up a cultural dialectic between France and Cameroon. Her heroine must navigate the multicul tural space of the post-colonial capital to assess the compromises and concessions that white and black women make.Aissatou is caught between her Parisian reality where sexual value is based on how thin a woman is, and her memories of her mother's advice which promoted the importance of domesticity and especially culinary satisfaction in the life of a couple. â€Å"Un homme qui vous fait ressentir de telles emotions†¦.. merite le paradis,†34 she would say as she seasoned a dish to please her man. Aissatou imagines the questions that her mother would have asked her if her daughter had come to her after a failed love affair.Her mother would have asked if first, she had satisfied him sexually, second, if she had kept the house well, and third if she had prepared nice dishes for him. As Aissatou begins cooking savory dishes for herself her thin figure fills in with more womanly curves, eliciting pitying looks from some who think that she has let herself go, and approval from others. Race, beauty, food and sex are all locked into an uneasy correlation that she cannot accept. She gives up on the idea of maintaining a French, i. e. thin, ideal of beauty and trades it for the African ideal of sensual pleasure of food as a means to attract men.Interestingly, she does not trade her French beauty regimen for an African one. She even cites the methods that she is unwilling to follow and decides that braiding her hair, massaging herself with shea butter and pretending to be fragile is not for her: â€Å"Rien qu’a y penser, je m’epuise comme si c’etait deja a l’ouvrage. †35 This return to her roots is unquestionably problematical for Aissatou. She is torn between the two worlds constantly. For example, when she sees Bolobolo leaving the apartment building, she is struck by her sudden ‘African’ reaction: â€Å"Si j'etais sa femme, je serais restee a la maison a l'attendre. But just as quickly she asks herself, â₠¬Å"Mais pourquoi dans le partage des roles les femmes doivent-elles garder le foyer, cuisiner, allumer les lampes†¦. jusqu'a ce que mort s'ensuive? †36This is the same reaction that she has when she asks herself if she is capable of using African methods of seduction. Aissatou’s onerous task is to reconcile her African mother’s advice on how to seduce and hold on to a man with her French post-feminist questions about that role. She knows that her mother is right, and that she will be able to seduce this African man by appealing to his sensual desires and African identity.So, she picks at Bolobolo's sensibilities as an African man and critiques him for doing the marketing himself, saying: â€Å"Vous vous etes finalement bien adapte a l'Occident qui voudrait que l'homme soit une femme et l'inverse. †37In this way, she calls attention to the cultural difference in the French and African views on the traditional division of labor and highlights the fact t hat she and Bolobolo share a common culture, though they may be forced to adapt to French practices.Aissatou also seeks to call attention to their shared culture when she uses Bolobolo's mother's condition as an excuse to get involved, which she does with ulterior motives: â€Å"J'ai l'impression que mon discours est en decalage, espace et temps. Je sais que j'ai eu une reaction africaine ou tout le monde se mele des casseroles etrangeres. â€Å"38 This statement is telling because it shows that Aissatou knows that she is acting in bad faith.She knows that she has rejected certain aspects of African seduction and that she is not being honest about her intentions, but she nevertheless goes forward with her culinary seduction of Bolobolo and his mother. When Aissatou brings the beignets to Bolobolo's mother he mentions that she mustn't have anything better to do if she is cooking for others, but Aissatou reminds him: â€Å"Oui, parce que dans ce pays il faut etre vieux ou au chomag e pour se rendre compte qu'il est important que l'on s'occupe des autres,† again setting herself apart from the French and reminding him that they are compatriots.She finally gains access to his house with this plate of food. Once inside, she professes that she loves to cook and he answers that he loves to do dishes, seeming indicating that they are ideally suited for each other, but also indicating that he may be an African man, but he has adapted to a non-African setting. And this is the prime reason that Aissatou cooks, and especially why she cooks African food, to spark Bolobolo's passion for her. Aissatou cooks constantly, and she cooks the most exotic dishes and uses ingredients that she must search for in all the African boutiques of the capital.Her apartment building is infused with the heady aromas of African cuisine, which causes different reactions among her French neighbors. The concierge battles the smells of cooking with the Airwick spray, but the old lady who li ves on the first floor creeps up the steps to hover on the landing while Aissatou is cooking. Aissatou’s cooking, because it is foreign and strange smelling, makes her black in the eyes of the racist concierge and Bolobolo’s metisse girlfriend, Bijou.Aissatou decides to invite Bolobolo and his mother to dinner at her apartment, where she intends to win him over with her prowess in the kitchen, but when she goes downstairs to invite him, another woman is in the apartment with him. Unfazed, she announces that she would be happy to bring dinner down to them to enjoy together. The dinner is a success with Bolobolo but his girlfriend, a lovely metissse named Bijou, doesn't enjoy herself at all: â€Å"Je n'ai jamais aime la cuisine africaine†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Parait qu'ils mangent des singes, ces Negres! † To which Aissatou responds: â€Å"Du serpent boa egalement†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.C'est excellent, n'est-ce pas†39Again, the food has served to bring together the African s and place them in opposition to a separate group because they share a taste for a dish that others find objectionable. Aissatou even goes further in invoking their taste for boa constrictor, because she knows that Bijou will be disgusted by this prospect. Since Bijou is mulatto and not just French, Aissatou and Bolobolo’s shared food preference places emphasis on the fact that they are from the same country in Africa and therefore share a distinct culture, and should not be lumped in with other ‘people of color. But Aissatou's main goal for her fabulous dinner is achieved after Bijou's departure when Bolobolo starts kissing and caressing Aissatou while she is cleaning up the kitchen. This woman, who previously denied herself any sensual pleasure at all from food, is altered by her dinner with Bolobolo. With her seduction of Bolobolo she acquires a new language, where food metaphors dominate the description of sex and the body. Nicki Hitchcott sees the narrator’ s almost over the top references to food to be a demonstration of cliches on which Western advertising depends. 0But at the same time, this dinner is evocative of the traditional polygamous African family dynamic, where the wife who cooks for the husband is the one who sleeps with him that night. Although Aissatou must still deal with her more powerful rival, Bolobolo's mother, she is eventually successful in seducing and keeping him with her culinary talents. By the end of the novel, Aissatou's transformation is complete. She does experience uneasiness when it comes to her own motives and doubts regarding her role in what Hitchcott calls ‘postnational’ France, but Aissatou settles on using cooking in order to maintain her relationships.She has gone from being a self-described white woman who viewed food as a ‘fatal poison' in the matter of seduction, to using food as a tool to accomplish her goal of seducing Bolobolo. She now sees food as a positive, unifying for ce: â€Å"La nourriture est synonyme de la vie. Aujourd'hui elle constitue une unite plus homogene que la justice. Elle est peut-etre l'unique source de paix et de reconciliation entre les hommes.  »41And in this novel, cooking can also reflect passion, love, comfort, anger and civility.Food and Aissatou's deft manipulation of people through her cooking give her power that she doesn't have otherwise in French society. As Bolobolo’s mother says in the novel, cooking is indeed becoming a rare skill especially in large capital cities like Paris because women are increasingly working outside the home, and don’t have the time or even talent to cook, since they never really learned the skills from their mothers. Even though France may be a center for haute cuisine technique, it suffers the same problems of all modern countries where there has been a redistribution of domestic tasks from inside to outside the home.Women don’t cook as much as they used to, and more a nd more people eat outside the home. Therefore, we must ask ourselves for whom the didactic element of this book is intended. As stated above, it is not descriptive enough to satisfy a food adventurer in search of the exotic and by virtue of the fact that it is written and published in France, it is clearly not intended to be used by African women. Perhaps the reader who would find Beyala’s recipes to be the most accessible are women like herself, immigrant women who might need to be tempted back to the kitchen.When this is considered along with Beyala’s problematical portrayal of marriage, the book appears as an invitation to take up cooking, not as a way to experience the exotic, but as a way to reject the Western ideal of beauty and to appropriate some power within the community. Aissatou returned to this aspect of her African heritage, because she had a specific goal in mind and felt that this would allow her to achieve it. She questions herself, her methods and he r motives all along the way, and ultimately accepts the limitations of â€Å"un bon pepe-soupe† and her husband’s monogamy.Just as she advises her neighbor whose husband has begun to stray from the conjugal bed, she doesn’t reproach Bolobolo and accepts his infidelity, knowing that eventually, he will return to her. She rejected the literal and figurative hunger that she experienced as a ‘negresse blanche† and chose the culinary tools that allow her to make her husband happy, even though she knows that he will sometimes hurt her. Beyala’s heroine fully understands the limitations that she faces in a Paris, and negotiates an identity through her cooking that she can live with.

Electronic Health Record Essay

In the proposed scenario. a Clinical Nurse Specialist ( CNS ) with a Post-Masters Nursing Informatics Certificate has decided that the 100 bed infirmary that she works in would profit from transitioning from paper charting to utilizing an electronic wellness record ( EHR ) system. She has done initial clinical research and has a solid foundation of best-patient-practice grounds that support this alteration. She has besides researched and studied the information on the government’s websites HealthIT. gov. and CMS. gov refering to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health ( HITECH ) Act of 2009. HITECH is a stimulus bundle approved by the US authorities leting $ 19 billion dollars to be divided between infirmaries and physicians â€Å" who demonstrate â€Å"meaningful use† of electronic medical records† ( ARRA HITECH Solutions. 2015 ) . She knows that the best manner to choose and establish an EHR is to piece a squad of members with assorted fortes refering to the ends outlined in the phases of HITECH. Stage 1- Data gaining control and sharing. Stage 2- Advance clinical procedures and Stage 3- Improved results. Each of these phases has it’s ain meaningful usage standards. As seen in the diagram to the left. The CNS Begins by taking the members of her squad from assorted subjects in the infirmary. Because this will intend corporate broad alterations and acceptance. Her list includes the following. from the IT section. a Clinical Nursing Informatacist- chosen for a forte in how nurses interact with package and what is required for nurses to efficaciously care for patients. and the Director of Clinical Informatics- chosen for an overall cognition base of the infirmaries information sciences resources and demands including what package and hardware is presently available. what has worked or failed in the yesteryear and what alterations will necessitate to go on to maintain the infirmary compliant with patient privateness and safety ordinances. She will besides necessitate a Corporate Project Manager to form and circulate information to the assorted off-site entities related to the installations that will necessitate to be on board with this alteration across the corporation. A Chief Medical Information Officer will be cardinal in supplying the position of the doctors and their peculiar demands and ends. and to be a affair for the staff physicians when the EHR rollout occurs. A Chief Information Officer will convey cognition about the hospital’s twenty-four hours to twenty-four hours maps that will necessitate to incorporate into the new EHR along with how those systems presently function. A Chief Nursing Information Officer will hold their finger on the pulsation of each nursing unit and be cognizant of the different user interface demands that will be needed by different sections for the the specific type of flow and care given. Last. a Chief Financial Officer will be able to steer the squad on subjects refering governmental support and current assets along with assisting to make and keep a budget as required with the acquisition of new package and hardware. he will besides be able to work with each department’s budget shapers when the clip comes for apportioning preparation hours and equipment purchases. Along the manner the squad will necessitate to convey in sub-specialists to give information and feedback as they hone the new system. but for now the assembled squad will be responsible for researching. choosing and implementing the best EHR for their infirmary. A. 2 a-e ) Choose 2 real-life computerized direction systems and analyse them by comparing their advantages and disadvantages. urge the best pick to run into the ‘MU’ demands. depict how the characteristics of the recommended system meet the guidelines outlined in the three phases of meaningful usage. depict the impact on quality of patient attention. certification and results. The squad is cognizant that presently they have a computerized system that they use for coverage and tracking labs. radiology and programming. but all certification is paper based. They consider the monetary value point involved with adding faculties to the bing McKesson package V buying and implementing an wholly new EHR called EPIC. EPIC appears to be user friendly and able to seamlessly connect all of the installations under the umbrella of their corporation. They make a list of some of the pros and cons associated with each system. McKesson has the top of being a system they have already worked with and it has different plans that can be pieced together to run into some of the meaningful usage ( MU ) standard for conformity. They already have a working relationship with this seller and some experience with the merchandise. Once the treatment gets traveling. the squad realizes that there are many more bad points than good with McKesson. In their experience. the package faculties are connected in a bit-by-bit manner that makes it hard for plans to interface. Quite often data is merely lost and non retrievable. There are different informations entry systems for the different types of sections i. e. OR. ER. labour & A ; bringing. Med/Surge. radiology. and pharmaceutics. The different systems do non let for across the board data harvest home and that makes it hard and clip devouring to track reportable nursing and CMS indexs. The aesthetics of McKesson are something that is often complained about by the staff. due t o miss of typical colour passage and oculus weariness. Last. the group is really loath to go on on constructing their EHR base with McKesson because the PCPs in the country will non be able to entree infirmary records. and office visit information will non be available to the infirmary based staff. Due to the demand for increased adult male hours in serving McKesson. deficiency of distinct informations sampling. and the hapless continuity of attention related to PCPs non holding entree to hospital informations and frailty versa. the squad decides to take Epic alternatively. Epic has the down side of being a system that will necessitate a big initial spending of financess. The infirmary will hold to buy package. and related hardware. They will hold to spread out the IT and biomedical technology sections to back up and keep the new system and equipment ( something that would hold been necessary to a smaller grade with McKesson ) . They will hold to turn to some retrofitting demands related to wiring and computing machine instillment and in conclusion preparation will be a really large issue. Despite the possible down sides. the squad comes up with a long list of grounds that EPIC is the right system to take. To get down with EPIC is all one system. It allows for seamless interdepartmental interfacing. The PCPs in the country already utilize a version of EPIC and this will let for easy data exchange and a patient’s information will follow them easy. The EPIC system has a medicine rapprochement signifier that is easy viewable to all attention givers and pharmaceuticss in the country. maintaining path of each patients reported medicine dosage and frequence. EPIC has a ‘my chart’ characteristic that allows patients see labs. after visit sum-ups. and to interact with doctors about scheduling. medicines and lab consequences. EPIC has many built in safe guards. including watchword protection. unin terrupted backup and recovery plans so no information is lost. and the seller provides go oning support as needed. EPIC comes in 3 pre-bundled. customizable templets. each already set up to run into the Meaningful Use ( MU ) standard without holding to change the plan. The squad can look at the three available options and find if one fits them absolutely. or happen the closest one and change it to suit their specific demands. Some illustrations of how EPIC will run into the Stage 1 MU standards are computerized physician order entry. look intoing for drug interactions and allergic reactions automatically. tracking demographics. maintaining current diagnosing. medicine and allergy lists. leting patients to hold electronic entree to dispatch sum-ups. and it gives patients electronic entree to doctors. Once the infirmary has used EPIC for at least two old ages. some illustrations of how EPIC will assist run into the Stage 2 MU standards are ongoing patient informations entry and discreet sampling for study coevals. The squad will go on to develop the package that demonstrates interoperability in sharing of lab consequences with other suppliers and systems. Security hazard appraisal will be on-going and built into the system. Smoking position will be tracked on all patients 13 and older and the EPIC package is designed to steer the installation from run intoing the Phase 1 standards to run intoing the Phase 2 standards. Phase 3 MU aims are projected to better results. The squad is waiting on the concluding opinion for what the Phase 3 guidelines will be and in the average clip they have a jutting end of concentrating on primary bar steps and bettering overall population wellness. This will include recommended inoculation reminders. smoking surcease aid. healthy life style and repast planning recommendations. and annually medical examination reminders generated by primary doctors that will crossover to hospital patient charts. Some of the better benefits of EPIC include point and click check in the appraisal Fieldss. this allows for distinct sampling of information. EPIC utilizes a coverage work bench that will reap requested. reportable informations and assemble it into a user friendly templet. This will profit the infirmary by cut downing former man-hours required to happen and roll up informations for clinical quality steps. public wellness coverage. and CMS indexs. Discrete informations trying from EPIC will do the infirmary a benefit to the community every bit good by leting it to track tendencies and supply information to community wellness nurses. EPIC comes with the ability to set up difficult Michigans and reminders that allow real-time users to be cognizant of demands for attention coordination and patient specific followups or recommended proving related to handling chronic conditions. It will besides let for symptom goaded order entry Fieldss to be instantly available in emergent state of affairss where clip taken to look for those things could intend a worse result. This is particularly of import when people present with symptoms of shot or bosom onslaught. Another EPIC benefit is the different degrees of bedside specific PHI protection related to sensitive attention. EPIC has a ‘break the glass’ functionality refering to all sexual assault and psychiatric admits. This map merely allows relevant staff to open and see these patients charts. any others are shown a pop-up warning and a notice is sent to get down an probe of any other individual who logs in to theses charts. The squad is impressed with the information provided by EPIC refering scanning patients and medicines at the bedside and the decrease in medicine mistakes this causes. The scanners will incorporate with the medicine distributing machines already in usage at the infirmary. One of the major benefits of EPIC is the order entry physique. Each doctor. with a minimum sum of preparation. can custom-make the order entry procedure to reflect their demands. Medicine orders are immediately linked to a druggist to duplicate cheque for allergic reactions. and right dosing information. and so the medicine becomes available. via PYXIS machines on the unit for the RN to administrate at the bedside. The bedside dosing requires the patient and medicine to be scanned. further extinguishing possi ble mistakes. and provides a pop-up warning if an exigency override is required during any of these stairss. While the squad acknowledges that developing and clip to go familiar with the new charting and bedside everyday alterations will ab initio impact patient attention in a negative manner. they have a program in head to maintain the patients educated on the new system alterations and the awaited better attention available to the patients across the board from establishing an EHR system. Having the patients ask inquiries and give existent clip feedback will assist the squad tweek their preparation and bedside modus operandis to give better. more organized attention that consequences in traceable results. This is merely an overview of some of the many maps EPIC has that persuaded the squad to take it as the new EHR system for the infirmary. ( EPIC and McKesson related information was culled from the writers ain experience with the systems and personal interviews with multiple members of the information sciences section at St Francis Hospital. Indianapolis campus ) . A. 3 a ) Use of Quality Improvement Data EPIC has point and click appraisal check and a standardised certification format that links related informations. This allows for distinct informations trying related to things like CMS indexs. The infirmary will be able to track conformity with things like ‘door to EKG’ times in the exigency section. Foley catheter usage and attendant CAUTIs. and the clip from when a patient presents with shot symptoms until a cat scan is done and/or whether the patient receives antithrombolytics as a consequence. The infirmary will besides be able to bring forth studies on mistakes that occur the via the Risk Monitor Pro incident tracking package. This will let them to go on researching and bettering procedures. A. 3 B ) Security Standards and Methods EPIC has 24 hr monitoring of staff usage while logged in. and the records they entree. This is of import because 100s of staff members will be utilizing the system and at that place has to be answerability if employees were to look up their ain records. or the records of friends or household. This information can be tracked and the employee interviewed and disciplined if needed. EPIC besides comes equipped with incident coverage package called Risk Monitor Pro. All staff members are encouraged to utilize this format to describe any incident that might justify farther probe. It covers every location. type of employee. type of equipment. patient. visitant or seller. Risk Monitor Pro signifiers are used to describe possible or sensed hurts. faulty equipment. lookout events and things that have the possible to do injury or harm. This information can be followed up on by the hazard direction squad. so that procedure betterment is an on-going procedure. The squad works with members from the IT section and programs for primary informations storage with a redundant back up storage unit that at the same time updates so if the primary waiter fails there is no loss of information. They have besides planned for a 2nd. off site informations storage centre that can be used in instance of exigency to guarantee continuity of services. and maintain things up and running while the primary system is off line for ascents. Last back up tapes will be kept at a 3rd site in instance both of these countries are compromised. and the system can be rebooted and running once more within 72 hours. A. 3 degree Celsius ) Explain how the system will protect patient privateness and meet HIPAA demands EPIC will protect patient privateness in a figure of ways. End User entree is limited to merely being able to entree the information needed to make their occupations. Making the accessible information different for nurses. doctors. enrollment clerks. radiology technicians. commission members etc. Forces will merely be granted entree once they have completed security preparation and have signed certification saying that they understand the legal hazards and duties when accessing protected wellness information ( PHI ) . Persons outside the infirmary will hold entree to EPIC every bit good. for illustration nursing place doctors. They will hold a read merely entree granted. but will necessitate multiple patient identifiers to entree the information. Besides. as mentioned earlier. EPIC will use security related chart difficult Michigans like ‘Break the Glass’ . A. 3 vitamin D ) Explain how the recommended system meets HIPAA demands EPIC helps to run into HIPAA demands with machine-controlled enforcing of entree policies. and pro-active alertness that links straight to the hazard direction section. necessitating strong watchword policies. and automatic logout at terminal user work Stationss. EPIC allows suppliers to protect the unity of informations and retrieve original informations in the instance of it being altered or damaged. EPIC users are required to hold appropriate preparation to be able to entree the system. and can be locked out in the instance of expiration. Portable devices carry encoding package that does non let for 3rd party informations extraction or entree. EPIC can besides rapidly bring forth studies with distinct trying related to assorted signifiers of entree. The bulk of conformity will be the duty of the staff with written policies. documented countenance plans and probe that is ongoing. consistent and documented. A. 3 vitamin E ) Describe how following the system will cut down costs to the organisation Establishing this new system will ab initio bring forth more costs. but in the long tally will salvage the infirmary money in many ways. Meeting the ARRA/HITECH Act demands will assist to countervail those cost with fiscal inducements and avoiding mulcts and punishments. Having readily available trial consequences will diminish the costs and labour associated with reiterating lost or illegible consequences. With superior organisation and informations drumhead tools. the cost for labour associated with analyzing charts separately and bring forthing studies will be exponentially lower. The demand for transcriptionists will be greatly reduced by using command package. Facilities for storage of paper charting cost money for upkeep and staffing. An electronic database should do charge and insurance claims easier to treat and thereby generate gross faster. The clip it takes for doctors to pass traveling over complicated medical histories with patients is greatly reduced by holding that information readily available in a database. â€Å"According to a recent survey. when infirmaries rely on advanced electronic wellness records they can salvage up to 10 per centum per patient admission† ( â€Å"Advanced EHR Cuts Hospital Costss By 10 % Per Admission. † 2014 ) . 4. A ) Explain why active nursing engagement in the planning. choice. and execution of the systems is of import to the success of the execution procedure and meeting meaningful usage demands Active nursing engagement is of import to the success of implementing any procedure that affects care given at the bedside. For the system to be optimized for usage. nursing suggestions and feedback are critical. EPIC knows this and has a squad of nurses on staff to work with the installation in developing end-user interface. ‘Nurses’ from the infirmary include the advocators. CNS’s. NP’s. LPN’s. directors. and bedside attention givers. each with a specific focal point and experiences that are valuable when assisting to make up one's mind how charting should work. Any thing that pulls a nurses attending off from the patient. or is deflecting or hard to work with lessenings the sensed degree of attention and increases the potency for mistakes. The wellness attention ends of meaningful usage include bettering efficiency. safety and quality while diminishing disagreements. affecting patients and their households in their attention. bettering public wellness results. bettering attention coordination. and progressing security and privateness of PHI ( Gregory & A ; Klepfer. 2010 ) . All of these things are the foundation of every interaction a nurse has with a patient. This is why nursing is one of the most sure professions. harmonizing to the Gallup pole web site. nurses come out on top at 80 % when people were asked to rate â€Å"the honestness and ethical criterions of people† in different given Fieldss ( â€Å"Honesty/Ethics in Professions | Gallup Historical Trends. † n. d. ) . Because standard nursing attention already meets the ends outlined for meaningful usage. the most of import thing the mean nurse can make is to work hard to be competent using the selected EHR package. Advanced users and nurse leaders are of import to assist steer the EHR choice procedure in the way that will better the bedside interactions and user interface. Clinical nurse specializers have advanced instructions and convey the nursing doctrine to the choice and execution procedure. All of these functions are critical to the success of any EHR execution.