There are a wide range of applications in physics and structural mechanics involving domains with singular perturbations of the boundary. Examples include perforated domains and bodies with defects of different types. The accurate direct numerical treatment of such problems remains a challenge. Asymptotic approximations offer an alternative, efficient solution. Green’s function is considered here as the main object of study rather than a tool for generating solutions of specific boundary value problems. The uniformity of the asymptotic approximations is the principal point of attention. We also show substantial links between Green’s functions and solutions of boundary value problems for meso-scale structures. Such systems involve a large number of small inclusions, so that a small parameter, the relative size of an inclusion, may compete with a large parameter, represented as an overall number of inclusions. The main focus of the present text is on two topics: (a) asymptotics of Green’s kernels in domains with singularly perturbed boundaries and (b) meso-scale asymptotic approximations of physical fields in non-periodic domains with many inclusions. The novel feature of these asymptotic approximations is their uniformity with respect to the independent variables. This book addresses the needs of mathematicians, physicists and engineers, as well as research students interested in asymptotic analysis and numerical computations for solutions to partial differential equations.
A witty, insightful, and affectionate examination of how and why we spend billions on our pets, and what this tells us about ourselves In 2003, Michael Schaffer and his wife drove to a rural shelter and adopted an emaciated, dreadlocked Saint Bernard who they named Murphy. They vowed that they'd never become the kind of people who send dogs named Baxter and Sonoma out to get facials, or shell out for $12,000 hip replacements. But then they started to get weird looks from the in-laws: You hired a trainer? Your vet prescribed antidepressants? So Schaffer started poking around and before long happened on an astonishing statistic: the pet industry, estimated at $43 billion this year, was just $17 billion barely a decade earlier. One Nation Under Dog is about America's pet obsession—the explosion, over the past generation, of an industry full of pet masseuses, professional dog-walkers, organic kibble, leash-law militants, luxury pet spas, veterinary grief counselors, upscale dog shampoos, and the like: a booming economy that is evidence of tremendous and rapid change in the status of America's pets. Schaffer provides a surprising and lively portrait of our country—as how we treat our pets reflects evolving ideas about domesticity, consumerism, politics, and family—through this fabulously reported and sympathetic look at both us and our dogs.
This publication is intended to provide a synopsis of the basic concepts and practice elements of Service strategy, which forms part of the core ITIL service management practices. A view of ITIL that aligns business and IT so that each brings out the best in the other. It ensures that every element of the service lifecycle is focused on customer outcomes and relates to all the companion process elements that follow. Subsequent titles in the core set will link deliverables to meeting the business goals, requirements and service management principles described in this publication.
We want students to master academic standards, and we want them to be confident, adaptive, and socially responsible. Above all, we want them to find meaning and satisfaction in their lives. Achieving these goals requires a concerted focus on the social-emotional skills that empower students in and beyond the classroom. In Teaching to Empower, Debbie Zacarian and Michael Silverstone explore what an empowered student looks like in our increasingly diverse contemporary schools and prompt educators to examine their own relationship to empowerment. The book's evidence-based strategies and authentic examples show you how to foster an inclusive culture of agency, self-confidence, and collaboration that will give each of your students—regardless of race, culture, language, socioeconomic status, abilities, sexuality, or gender—the opportunity, responsibility, and tools to become an active learner, thoughtful community member, and engaged global citizen. Whether you're a preservice teacher, a classroom novice, or a veteran, you'll find the practical guidance you'll need to * Create inclusive and empowering physical learning spaces. * Set up self-directed learning and promote positive interdependence. * Promote student self-reflection. * Teach the skills of collaboration. * Foster the self-advocacy that fuels deeper, more autonomous learning. * Partner more effectively with families and the community to support student empowerment.
More and more historical texts are becoming available in digital form. Digitization of paper documents is motivated by the aim of preserving cultural heritage and making it more accessible, both to laypeople and scholars. As digital images cannot be searched for text, digitization projects increasingly strive to create digital text, which can be searched and otherwise automatically processed, in addition to facsimiles. Indeed, the emerging field of digital humanities heavily relies on the availability of digital text for its studies. Together with the increasing availability of historical texts in digital form, there is a growing interest in applying natural language processing (NLP) methods and tools to historical texts. However, the specific linguistic properties of historical texts -- the lack of standardized orthography, in particular -- pose special challenges for NLP. This book aims to give an introduction to NLP for historical texts and an overview of the state of the art in this field. The book starts with an overview of methods for the acquisition of historical texts (scanning and OCR), discusses text encoding and annotation schemes, and presents examples of corpora of historical texts in a variety of languages. The book then discusses specific methods, such as creating part-of-speech taggers for historical languages or handling spelling variation. A final chapter analyzes the relationship between NLP and the digital humanities. Certain recently emerging textual genres, such as SMS, social media, and chat messages, or newsgroup and forum postings share a number of properties with historical texts, for example, nonstandard orthography and grammar, and profuse use of abbreviations. The methods and techniques required for the effective processing of historical texts are thus also of interest for research in other domains. Table of Contents: Introduction / NLP and Digital Humanities / Spelling in Historical Texts / Acquiring Historical Texts / Text Encoding and Annotation Schemes / Handling Spelling Variation / NLP Tools for Historical Languages / Historical Corpora / Conclusion / Bibliography
Business scandals are always with us from the South Sea Bubble to Enron and Parmalat. As accounting forms a central element of any business success or failure, the role of accounting is crucial in understanding business scandals. This book aims to explore the role of accounting, particularly creative accounting and fraud, in business scandals. The book is divided into three parts. In Part A the background and context of creative accounting and fraud is explored. Part B looks at a series of international accounting scandals and Part C draws some themes and implications from the country studies.
This book describes the important role that the transfer of genes between organisms has played during the origin and evolution of humans, and the evolution of organisms on which the human species depends for shelter, sustenance and companionship.
William Morgan, a tough-talking ex-paratrooper, stunned family and friends when in 1957 he left Ohio to join freedom fighters in the mountains of Cuba. He led one band of guerrillas, and Che Guevara another, and together they swept through the country, ultimately forcing corrupt dictator Fulgencio Batista from power. In just a year of fighting, the American revolutionary had altered the landscape of the Cold War. But Morgan believed they were fighting to liberate Cuba. Then Fidel Castro canceled elections, seized properties, and imprisoned Morgan’s fellow freedom fighters. Even Morgan’s own house mysteriously blew up. But The Comandante is about more than just the revolution. It’s the story of two people in love, pressured by government agents and mobsters vying to control a nation that soon brought the world to the brink of nuclear destruction. In the mountains, Morgan met Olga Rodriguez, a beautiful, fiery nurse, whom he soon married. Together, amid their firestorm romance, they decided to take a stand and take back the government from Castro and Guevara. The newlyweds began running arms to prepare for a counterrevolution, soon caught in a cloak-and-dagger web among Castro’s forces; the Mob, which controlled Havana; and the CIA’s preparations for the Bay of Pigs Invasion. But one of Morgan’s guards betrayed him to Castro, who threw the counterrevolutionary in prison, placing his wife and their two daughters under house arrest. The couple smuggled secret messages to each other until Olga ultimately escaped by drugging her captors. Before she could free her husband, though, a junta tribunal tried and sentenced him to death by firing squad. Drawing on declassified FBI, CIA, and Army intelligence records as well as Olga’s diaries, Pulitzer Prize–winning authors Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss skillfully reveal the inner workings of the Cuban Revolution while detailing the incredible love story of a rebel nurse and an American street hero who left their mark on history.
The Spanish Civil War was fought not only on the streets and battlefields from 1936 to 1939 but also through memory and trauma in the decades that followed. This fascinating book reassesses the eras of war, dictatorship and transition to democracy in light of the memory boom in Spain since the late 1990s. It explores how the civil war and its repressive aftermath have been remembered and represented from 1939 to the present through the interweaving of war memories, political power and changing social relations. Acknowledgement and remembrance were circumscribed during the war's immediate aftermath and only the victors were free to remember collectively during the long Franco era. Michael Richards recasts social memory as a profoundly historical product of migration, political events and evolving forms of collective identity through the 1950s, the transition to democracy in the 1970s, and in the bitterly contested politics of memory since the 1990s.
Sick of the total BS of rampant PC? This brazen, furiously funny book is the antidote to today's poison of political correctness. With humor and chutzpah, attorney, commentator, and popular radio host Michael Smerconish takes on today's oversensitive culture with a collection of entertaining, outlandish anecdotes about PC gone wild-stories that are hilarious, horrifying, and unbelievably true. Why are sports leagues handing out trophies to losers? Why are little old grandmas hired to guard 200-pound prisoners? Why are newborn babies and old men with walkers singled out at the airport while likely terrorists are ushered through security with ease? This book shows through these absurdities that today's atmosphere of censorship and multiculturalism is paving the way for serious threats to our cultural identity and national security: "It's one thing for the forces of political correctness to muzzle our day-to-day lives here at home in the US, quite another when that same cancer metastasizes into the war on terror." We must eradicate the PC disease. Our sanity-and our very lives-depend on it. "Michael Smerconish talks the talk: If you say unpopular things, watch out! Using vivid examples of PC rubbish, Muzzled will lead you into a world that would terrify Rod Serling. An entertaining and provocative book." -Bill O'Reilly "Reads like fiction, too bad it's true." -Nelson DeMille, novelist, author of Night Fall and The General's Daughter "The PC virus is out of control . . . and it's worse than you think! In this entertaining and important book, Michael Smerconish chronicles just how mindless things have gotten in politically correct America. He tells fascinating stories that will make you laugh . . . right up until the time they make you scream. Thanks to the PC crowd, we are all living in The United States of the Absurd." -Bernard Goldberg, journalist and author of 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, Arrogance, and Bias "I really squirm whenever I find myself agreeing with Smerconish. (I know the feeling is mutual.) I did a lot of squirming while reading this provocative book. All true liberals and conservatives must agree with Smerconish that the PC muzzles must be removed so that people can decide based on the marketplace of ideas." -Alan Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard and author of Preemption "I don't often find myself on the same side of the political barricades as Michael Smerconish. But Muzzled is a witty, provocative, and timely book. Even when Michael is wrong, which is often, he draws you in and keeps you reading." -Arianna Huffington, author of Pigs at the Trough and Fanatics and Fools "In Muzzled, my American Blood Brother of status-quo-obliterating defiance, Michael Smerconish, once again smokes out the cockroaches of political correctness . . . Muzzled is a great title for a book that I am convinced every American school kid should read and be tested on. If a new generation doesn't grow some intellectual balls, our Once Great Nation will continue to repeat horrific mistakes and pay the price . . . Read it. Live it." -Ted Nugent, rock star, author, television personality, and hunter extraordinaire
Consistently lauded for its comprehensiveness and full-color color presentation, the latest edition of Rheumatology by Marc C. Hochberg, MD, MPH et al. continues the tradition of excellence of previous editions. Designed to meet the needs of the practicing clinician, it provides extensive, authoritative coverage of rheumatic disease from basic scientific principles to practical points of clinical management in a lucid, logical, user-friendly manner. Find the critical answers you need quickly and easily thanks to a consistent, highly user-friendly format covering all major disorders of the musculoskeletal system in complete, self-contained chapters. Get trusted perspectives and insights from chapters co-authored by internationally renowned leaders in the field, 25% of whom are new to this edition. Track disease progression and treat patients more effectively with the most current information, including 22 new chapters on genetic findings, imaging outcomes, and cell and biologic therapies as well as rheumatoid arthritis and SLE. Incorporate the latest findings about pathogenesis of disease; imaging outcomes for specific diseases like RA, osteoarthritis, and spondyloarthropathies; cell and biologic therapies; and other timely topics.
A searing investigation of the factors that devastated Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria, from acclaimed investigative reporter Michael Deibert. When Hurricane Maria roared across Puerto Rico in September 2017, it devastated the island. It was an unprecedented natural disaster, a Category 5 major hurricane, and ultimately responsible for the deaths of more than 3,000 people. It also ripped away the facade that had dominated discussions of the island’s relationship with the United States for over a century. This is the first book to comprehensively expose what happened during Hurricane Maria, why Puerto Rico was so poorly prepared, and why a US territory, an island of American citizens, was largely ignored by the federal government in the wake of a catastrophic natural disaster. Using a blend of history and on-the-ground reportage, Michael Deibert pulls back the veil of the island known for its powdery beaches, rainforests, and apricot-and-lavender sunsets to reveal the trajectory for the decisions that set it on the path to the disaster that came during and in the wake of the storm, when its entire power grid and much of its water supply was knocked out. In doing so, he also reveals the stories of everyday heroism, compassion, and unexpected joy that have defined the island before and after Hurricane Maria.
Hormone replacement is clearly indicated for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis. Although its importance in treating this disease is no longer questioned, much remains to be fully understood about its effective application in practice. Drug Therapy for Osteoporosis examines what is known about the progress of osteoporosis and describes the impact of hormone replacement therapy. The author reviews the option for using SERMs as opposed to conventional HRT regimens, discusses not only the effectiveness of treatment but also the recommended duration, and provides clear guidelines on the laboratory evaluation of osteoporosis.
Every step in the business bankruptcy litigation process is covered in Aspen Publishers' Bankruptcy Litigation Manual, from the drafting of the first pleadings through the appellate process. In fact, by making the Bankruptcy Litigation Manual a part of your working library, you not only get detailed coverage of virtually all the topics and issues you must consider in any bankruptcy case, you also get field-tested answers to questions you confront every day, such as: How to stay continuing litigation against a corporate debtor's non-debtor officers? What are the limits on suing a bankruptcy trustee? Is the Deprizio Doctrine still alive? Does an individual debtor have an absolute right to convert a case from Chapter 7 to Chapter 13? What prohibitions exist on cross-collateralization in financing disputes? Are option contracts "executory" for bankruptcy purposes? When, and under what circumstances, may a bankruptcy court enjoin an administrative proceeding against a Chapter 11 debtor? What are the current standards for administrative priority claims? When must a creditor assert its setoff rights? When can a remand order issued by a district court be reviewed by a court of appeals? What are the limits on challenging pre-bankruptcy real property mortgage foreclosures as fraudulent transfers? Can an unsecured lender recover contract-based legal fees incurred in post- bankruptcy litigation on issues of bankruptcy law? Is there a uniform federal limitation on perfecting security interests that primes a longer applicable state law period, thus subjecting lenders to a preference attack? Do prior bankruptcy court orders bar a plaintiff's later state court suit and warrant removal of the action in federal court? Michael L. Cook, a partner at Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP in New York and former long-time Adjunct Professor at New York University School of Law, has gathered together some of the country's top bankruptcy litigators to contribute to Bankruptcy Litigation Manual.
From a twenty-year police veteran and former Trump supporter who nearly lost his life during the insurrection of January 6th, this instant New York Times bestseller is also an urgent warning that “offers a stark message for this uncertain moment, making crystal clear the urgency and importance of defending our precious democracy” (Nancy Pelosi). When Michael Fanone self-deployed to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, he had no idea his life was about to change. When he got to the front of the line, he urged his fellow officers to hold it against the growing crowd of insurrectionists—until he found himself pulled into the mob, tased until he had a heart attack, and viciously beaten with a Blue Lives Matter flag as shouts to kill him rang out. Now, Fanone is ready to tell the full story of that infamous day, along with exploring our country’s most critical issues as someone who has had firsthand experience with many of them. A self-described redneck who voted for Trump in 2016, Fanone’s closest friend was an informant—a Black, transgender, HIV-positive woman who has helped him mature and rethink his methods as a police officer. With his unique insight as an undercover detective and intense desire to do the right thing no matter the cost, Fanone provides a nuanced look into everything from policing to race to politics in a way that is accessible across all party lines. Determined to make sure no one forgets what happened at the Capitol on January 6th, Fanone has written a timely and “important” (Kirkus Reviews) call to action for anyone who wants to preserve our democracy for future generations.
This book provides a clear understanding of performance improvement opportunities and what is at stake if these opportunities are overlooked. It outlines a powerful and logical approach for assessing the state-of-play in any organization, and offers ways to estimate the specific opportunities related to implementing a change in strategy and practices. It also details a comprehensive framework for organizing the transformation plan across multiple dimensions, and gives advice on which areas to focus on first in order to build and ensure success.
Examines the personnel management (PM) policies & practices of the D.C. Courts. Those practices have been criticized by some employees of the D.C. Courts, who individually have alleged that the Courts' PM practices are unfair & at odds with the Courts' policies on PM. This report determined whether: the Courts' applicable policies for 6 basic personnel activities or functions were consistent with commonly accepted PM principles &, the Courts generally adhered to their policies when implementing the 6 personnel activities or functions: performance evaluation, competitive & noncompetitive promotions, corrective actions, training, classification, & equal employment opportunities policies.
This volume brings together experts on the quark-gluon structure of matter as it applies to nucleon resonance physics. The contributions discuss the latest findings in areas such as meson production via electromagnetic and hadronic reactions, baryon resonance structure in chiral and lattice QCD approaches, and the extraction of resonance parameters from coupled-channels analysis of data. Contents: MAID Analysis Technique (L Tiator); Results from the GDH Experiment at Mainz and Bonn (A Braghieri); The Crystal Ball at MAMI (D Watts); Dynamically Generated Baryon Resonances (M Lutz); Progress Report for a New Karlsruhe-Helsinki Type Pion-Nucleon Partial Wave Analysis (S Watson); A Genetic Algorithm Analysis of N * Resonances (D G Ireland); Eta Photoproduction of the Neutron at GRAAL (V Kuznetsov); The Problem of Exotic States: View from Complex Angular Momenta (Ya Azimov); Excited Baryons in the 1/ N c Expansion (N Matagne); and other papers. Readership: Researchers in nuclear, high-energy and particle physics.
In a Deadly Game of Working Undercover, Dea Special Agent Michael S. Vigil Recounts Standing Face to Face with Treacherous Drug Lords Who Began Their Conversation with “If You Are a Federal Agent We Will Kill You.”
In a Deadly Game of Working Undercover, Dea Special Agent Michael S. Vigil Recounts Standing Face to Face with Treacherous Drug Lords Who Began Their Conversation with “If You Are a Federal Agent We Will Kill You.”
There were always two hotel rooms. One for his counterparts doing the surveillance and one he used as the stage to play a ruthless Mexican drug trafficker making the deal for enormous amounts of cocaine, marijuana or heroin. One small slip of the tongue, or a slight bead of sweat on the brow could result in his violent, painful death. He was willing to do anything to convince the dangerous criminals he was one of them. Whether showing them a million dollars cash packed in a suitcase, flashing a bag of diamonds, buying rounds of drinks for everyone in a nightclub, whatever it took to make them believe he was as greed-filled and callous as they were. It was a spectacular cat and mouse game with the ultimate reward of sitting next to a hand cuffed cartel head on a flight headed to prison. It was listening to him beg for his freedom, offer millions in bribes, threaten his life and both knowing he had won.
An unprecedented breakdown of the NYPD’s powerful network of police unions, pro-police lawyers, and top brass who work relentlessly to shield police officers from any real accountability For readers of long-form, hard-hitting journalistic exposés like We Own This City, a compelling look at how we do—and don't—hold police responsible in America, by an award-winning progressive reporter covering the NYPD police beat In 2018, reporter Michael Hayes uncovered a major story about how the NYPD was not only turning a blind eye to police misconduct, but also allowing hundreds of officers with severe misconduct charges to remain on the force. In the aftermath of that story, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio attempted to reform the department only to abandon his plans. While de Blasio may have suffered a political setback, it’s New Yorkers who are the true victims of this failure to deliver accountability and transparency. The state has a law that specifically prevents the public from learning about concealed police records. New Yorkers are increasingly distrustful of the police after witnessing their loved ones being targeted, brutalized, and murdered with near impunity. Hayes takes readers inside decades of police corruption and controversial laws, chronicling the stories of the families and activists who have had enough. He makes a compelling case for the limits of reform in the aftermath of the major Black Lives Matter rallies following the murder of George Floyd and growing calls to defund the police.
Corrections: A Critical Approach, 3rd edition confronts mass imprisonment in the United States, a nation boasting the highest incarceration rate in the world. This statistic is all the more troubling considering that its correctional population is overrepresented by the poor, African-Americans, and Latinos. Not only throwing crucial light on matters involving race and social class, this book also identifies and examines the key social forces shaping penal practice in the US - politics, economics, morality, and technology. By attending closely to historical and theoretical development, the narrative takes into account both instrumental (goal-oriented) and expressive (cultural) explanations to sharpen our understanding of punishment and the growing reliance on incarceration. Covering five main areas of inquiry - penal context, penal populations, penal violence, penal process, and penal state - this book is essential reading for both undergraduate and graduate students interested in undertaking a critical analysis of penology.
This book presents a comprehensive account of the recent advances and research in optical fiber technology. It covers a broad spectrum of topics in special areas of optical fiber technology. The book highlights the development of fiber lasers, optical fiber applications in medical, imaging, spectroscopy and measurement, new optical fibers and sensors. This is an essential reference for researchers working in optical fiber researches and for industrial users who need to be aware of current developments in fiber lasers, sensors and other optical fiber applications.
Insects are the most diverse group of organisms in the 3 billion-year history of life on Earth, and the most ecologically dominant animals on land. This book chronicles for the first time the complete evolutionary history of insects: their living diversity, relationships and 400 million years of fossils. Whereas other volumes have focused on either living species or fossils, this is the first comprehensive synthesis of all aspects of insect evolution. The book is illustrated with 955 photo- and electronmicrographs, drawings, diagrams, and field photos, many in full colour and virtually all of them original. The book will appeal to anyone engaged with insect diversity: professional entomologists and students, insect and fossil collectors, and naturalists.
If you litigate or preside in any court in the state of New York, you know just how confounding the state's evidence law can be. New York Evidence Handbook is the new, comprehensive guide to all of the rules and principles of evidence applicable in New York courts. This new 1,000+ page handbook presents a practical, contemporary approach to evidence -- written with the real-world challenges of the New York trial lawyer and judge in mind. It gathers into one, easy-to-use handbook all of the rules, the leading decisions and the significant statutes you need to consider when assessing the admissibility of evidence. The book walks you through all the rules and their operation (as they relate to judicial notice, presumptions, relevance, the best evidence rule, etc.), discussing all of the leading authorities and citing numerous trial examples. Throughout New York Evidence Handbook, special attention is paid to helping you quickly solve commonly encountered, but difficult, evidence questions.
This title addresses the deeper questions of how remembrance of the U.S.-Mexican War has influenced the complex relationship between these former enemies now turned friends.
Complemented by easy-to use, reliable maps, helpful recommendations, authoritative background information, and up-to-date coverage of things to see and do, these popular travel guides cover in detail countries, regions, and cities around the world for travelers of every budget, along with extensive itineraries, maps with cross-referencing to the text, "Top 10" and "Top 5" lists, and other practical features.
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