And Then There Were None

And Then There Were None Agatha Christie was born on September 15th, 1890 in Torquay, England. Her name at birth was Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller, and her parents were Clarissa Boehmer of Belfast, Ireland and Frederick Miller, an American. Agatha was the youngest of three children, and grew up very alone because of the age gap of over ten years between her siblings. Her father passed away when she was only eleven years old, leaving her to grow up with her mother’s care. In 1906 Agatha traveled to Paris where she studied singing and piano (Www.sfu.ca). She didn’t discover her talent for writing until she was older. Years later on Christmas Eve (Www.sfu.ca) 1914, the Miller girl became Agatha Christie after marrying war Captain Archibald Christie. The two became parents in 1919 when they had their daughter, Rosalind. Before then, throughout 1914 to 1918, Agatha worked as a hospital and dispensary nurse during World War I. That was where she developed her vast knowledge involving poisons, drugs an d medicines (Www.sfu.ca). In 1920, Christie published her first book, â€Å"The Mysterious Affair at Styles†, in America. The book introduced her most famous character, Hercule Poirot, who would later appear in more than forty more books (Winks 12). After the book was published, Agatha wrote five more mysteries (Www.nd.edu) before publishing the novel that began her huge success; â€Å"The Murder of Rodger Ackroyd† (Winks 2). Seven months after the book was published, Agatha disappeared. Suspects claimed that she was murdered, and others believed her missing case was an act for publicity while the nation searched for her (Winks 3). Her whereabouts were discovered ten days after her disappearance when some people found out that she had registered in a local hotel under the name of the women with whom she had found out her husband was cheating with (Winks 3). In 1928, Agatha and Archibald divorced, which opened up a new door for Agatha’s characters when she develo ped the now famous Miss Marple. Two years later, after a couple more successful books had been published, she met Max Mallowan in Baghdad. Agatha and the archaeologist were soon married and Christie began to approach her highest point as an author. In 1930, Agatha Christie began writing and publishing romance novels under the pen name of Mary Westmacott. Robin Winks said, â€Å"These noncrime novels are not taken seriously today†. Christie was thought to put into play her feelings toward her ex-husband throughout the Westmacott novels (Winks 18). After years of fame, Agatha was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1956. She also became President of the Detection Club in 1957 and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Exeter University in 1961. Perhaps her most elite recognition was when she was named a Dame of the British Empire by the Queen of England in 1971. Her nickname was in fact the â€Å"Queen of Crime†. On January 12th, 1976, Agatha Christ ie passed away from old age. The author was only exceeded by Shakespeare and the Bible. Her 1940’s novel â€Å"Sleeping Murder: Miss Marple’s Last Case† was published after her death.

Technical communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Technical communication - Essay Example Operands are values used in the creation of a formula. Operants are commands that guide Excel on what actions to perform on operands. Addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication are examples of operants. Below are guidelines on how to write formulas that can ease working with a Microsoft Excel workbook (Taylor 17). There are also guidelines on how to change to manual calculation in the workbook. The complexity or simplicity of a formula depends on the needs of a user. It is advisable to insert a function when creating complex but fairly common formulas. This way, users do not have to create the entire formula (Taylor 18). Below are the steps followed in creating a formula used for linking information contained in a single Microsoft Excel worksheet. Writing formulas that include information that are in different worksheets is more complicating that writing a formula that involves information on the same worksheet. Microsoft Excel allows the linkage of information in different cells in the same or different worksheets contained in the same workbook. Five symbols help make formulas that link information from in worksheets (Taylor 19). The table below summarizes these five symbols, their names and use within formulas. b) Worksheets that have space between their names have apostrophes before and after the names of the worksheet so that their formula would appear in the format: =name of function(‘name of worksheet’!cell

Bank recession of 2011 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Bank recession of 2011 - Essay Example Particularly marked by decreased bank lending, which creates the recurring loop of a recessive economy. Three main players are involved in this triangular arrangement of the financial system: The government, the banks/financial institutions and the credit consumers. The government with its increased involvement to regulate financial markets formulates policies for the consumers which are mediated through the banks and financial institutions. Thus, the banks are stuck in a paradox of adhering to government policies and maintaining their own liquidity and capital ratios, which in turn effect the end consumers. During the pre-recession period, credit access was particularly easy worldwide, especially among the G 10 countries which were attributed as pioneers of the ongoing economic boom. (Michael, B., Leonardo, G., & Goetz, P. 2011) Increased mortgaging and borrowing backed by higher expectations from the market were rampant, but to the dismay of economic analysts, this bubble was artif icial. And eventually the growth backed by ill securities, bad mortgages and irregular credit ratings suddenly came to a halt with the financial market in doldrums.( Badertscher, B., Burks, J., & Easton, P. 2012) Banks and financial institutions had major investments in the real estate sector, the most effected of these by the financial crisis were those who had had readily converged to commercial construction and land development loans during the boom. (Hays, F., & Ward, S. 2010) Earlier financial crises have demonstrated that a concentration of loans within a single sector is very risky, since the developing sector may turn out to be a fad. It is considered a rule of thumb to diversify the investment portfolio to lower the risk to a minimum. But such was not the case and eventually, with the excess of subprime lending in the real estate economy without much securitization to back it, the banks involved had to bear the brunt of this mammoth of a crisis. Since then bank credit requi rements have increased twofold making it harder to borrow and creating a bottleneck in economic injections. And on the other hand dipping credit ratings are naturally creating skepticism in the average consumer’s mind about the credibility of bank loans, creating a demand lag which is evident in the 2011 loan demand figures. Worldwide government efforts have been aimed towards saving major banks and financial institutions by providing much needed capitalization as a measure to increase liquidity. But smaller community banks have had a tough time surviving without much government assistance, and a plethora of risky real estate mortgage loans with an unfavorable market to profit from. Since larger banking corporations are more inclined towards heavier accounts and portfolios, the role of an intermediary played by relatively smaller banks for consumer loans remains vacant. This becomes evident in the form of the supply lag for loans that has been a feature of the banking crisis. The major clients for bank loans are corporate clients which require substantial amounts of capital. This is an area where international banking is prevalent, with loan syndication seen as a common practice among international financial institutions. (Ralph, H., & Neeltje, H. 2011) This may perhaps also be the reason why the recession in the