Laura's Evolution
Laura's Evolution

Author: J. G. Leathers

Publisher: Pink Flamingo Media

Published: 2011-03-02

Total Pages: 102

ISBN-13: 1935897403

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Laura s desire for total subjugation runs deep, and when she meets Master Bernard, she believes she s found the man she s always dreamed of and slave life she desires. The two marry and begin their life together in a luxurious house that s discreetly located on 50 private acres, behind a high surrounding wall. Though they experience the usual up and downs of a new marriage, Laura settles in well to her unique lifestyle as her husband s slave. However, toward the end of the second year, a decision is made to fit her with a full range of purpose-designed bondage jewellery and custom-made restraints. Though excited to see her bondage fantasies fully realized, she has no clue that nearly all of the elaborate decorations her master orders cannot be removed! With specific plans in mind, Master Bernard takes Laura s transformation slowly: a physical exam, dental impressions, repeated piercings, even surgery to remove her floating ribs in order to better accommodate the strict corsetry he envisions. The experience is deeply arousing, though it s troubling too. She s dreamed of such extremes since puberty, but she has no idea how far her master plans to take their mutual fantasy, until it s too late to change her mind. She s fitted with a collar, ankle and wrist cuffs, and bands around her arms and legs. More restraints and odd devices follow as her subjugation becomes more intense and more invasive. She can barely even move! Soon she s living in a locked cell far from her husband s bed, where every physical requirement is taken care of by the master s elaborate gadgetry, including her sexual release. As the weeks go by, she sees little of the man she married and far more of the governess he hired to attend to her physical needs. With so little outside stimulation and no access to the natural world her days and weeks just blend into one. And still, she has yet to learn the ultimate truth of her incarceration and her master s plan for his future and hers.

Lara's Gift
Lara's Gift

Author: Annemarie O'Brien

Publisher: Yearling

Published: 2014-07-22

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 0307931757

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In 1914 Russia, Lara is being groomed by her father to be the next kennel steward for the Count's borzoi dogs unless her mother bears a son, but her visions, although suppressed by her father, seem to suggest she has a special bond with the dogs.

Avian Evolution
Avian Evolution

Author: Gerald Mayr

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2016-09-08

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1119020735

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Knowledge of the evolutionary history of birds has much improved in recent decades. Fossils from critical time periods are being described at unprecedented rates and modern phylogenetic analyses have provided a framework for the interrelationships of the extant groups. This book gives an overview of the avian fossil record and its paleobiological significance, and it is the only up-to-date textbook that covers both Mesozoic and more modern-type Cenozoic birds in some detail. The reader is introduced to key features of basal avians and the morphological transformations that have occurred in the evolution towards modern birds. An account of the Cenozoic fossil record sheds light on the biogeographic history of the extant avian groups and discusses fossils in the context of current phylogenetic hypotheses. This review of the evolutionary history of birds not only addresses students and established researchers, but it may also be a useful source of information for anyone else with an interest in the evolution of birds and a moderate background in biology and geology.

The Evolution of the Juvenile Court
The Evolution of the Juvenile Court

Author: Barry C. Feld

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2019-06-01

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 147987129X

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Winner, 2020 ACJS Outstanding Book Award, given by the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences A major statement on the juvenile justice system by one of America’s leading experts The juvenile court lies at the intersection of youth policy and crime policy. Its institutional practices reflect our changing ideas about children and crime control. The Evolution of the Juvenile Court provides a sweeping overview of the American juvenile justice system’s development and change over the past century. Noted law professor and criminologist Barry C. Feld places special emphasis on changes over the last 25 years—the ascendance of get tough crime policies and the more recent Supreme Court recognition that “children are different.” Feld’s comprehensive historical analyses trace juvenile courts’ evolution though four periods—the original Progressive Era, the Due Process Revolution in the 1960s, the Get Tough Era of the 1980s and 1990s, and today’s Kids Are Different era. In each period, changes in the economy, cities, families, race and ethnicity, and politics have shaped juvenile courts’ policies and practices. Changes in juvenile courts’ ends and means—substance and procedure—reflect shifting notions of children’s culpability and competence. The Evolution of the Juvenile Court examines how conservative politicians used coded racial appeals to advocate get tough policies that equated children with adults and more recent Supreme Court decisions that draw on developmental psychology and neuroscience research to bolster its conclusions about youths’ reduced criminal responsibility and diminished competence. Feld draws on lessons from the past to envision a new, developmentally appropriate justice system for children. Ultimately, providing justice for children requires structural changes to reduce social and economic inequality—concentrated poverty in segregated urban areas—that disproportionately expose children of color to juvenile courts’ punitive policies. Historical, prescriptive, and analytical, The Evolution of the Juvenile Court evaluates the author’s past recommendations to abolish juvenile courts in light of this new evidence, and concludes that separate, but reformed, juvenile courts are necessary to protect children who commit crimes and facilitate their successful transition to adulthood.

Marketing Metrics in Action
Marketing Metrics in Action

Author: Laura Patterson

Publisher: Racom Communication

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13:

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Talk about marketing accountability has become almost commonplace. Most marketing executives understand the need to know the numbers. The real question is, Which numbers? Marketing Metrics in Action: Creating a Performance-Driven Marketing Organization answers those questions and addresses those problems with a balance of sound theory and technique and practical application. The author, a veteran of marketing on both sides"the client side and the consultant side"explains how you need to begin by identifying the elements of the right culture. First, every company's product makeup, competitive situation, resources, and internal strengths and weaknesses differ. So do its needs for particular metrics. It is necessary to be able to identify which metrics matter to your organization's circumstances. Next it is necessary to create a culture of accountability. Everyone in the organization has to be "and be seen as being"on the same side and n the same page. Finance can't be seen as the enemy, and Sales and Marketing need work especially hard to coordinate their efforts. But this sense of accountability needs to extend from the C-Suite to the customer service and order entry people. Quality approaches and sophisticated ideas then become much more productive in the marketplace. A metrics audit will help establish where you are now, and mapping will enable you to align processes to better develop your dashboard. This book provides wise counsel for identifying which metrics matter most to your organization and practical guidance for putting all the sophisticated marketing tools to profitable use in your company.

Reticulate Evolution
Reticulate Evolution

Author: Nathalie Gontier

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-07-09

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 3319163450

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Written for non-experts, this volume introduces the mechanisms that underlie reticulate evolution. Chapters are either accompanied with glossaries that explain new terminology or timelines that position pioneering scholars and their major discoveries in their historical contexts. The contributing authors outline the history and original context of discovery of symbiosis, symbiogenesis, lateral gene transfer, hybridization or divergence with gene flow and infectious heredity. By applying key insights from the areas of molecular (phylo)genetics, microbiology, virology, ecology, systematics, immunology, epidemiology and computational science, they demonstrate how reticulate evolution impacts successful survival, fitness and speciation. Reticulate evolution brings forth a challenge to the standard Neo-Darwinian framework, which defines life as the outcome of bifurcation and ramification patterns brought forth by the vertical mechanism of natural selection. Reticulate evolution puts forward a pattern in the tree of life that is characterized by horizontal mergings and lineage crossings induced by symbiosis, symbiogenesis, lateral gene transfer, hybridization or divergence with gene flow and infective heredity, making the “tree of life” look more like a “web of life.” On an epistemological level, the various means by which hereditary material can be transferred horizontally challenges our classic notions of units and levels of evolution, fitness, modes of transmission, linearity, communities and biological individuality. The case studies presented examine topics including the origin of the eukaryotic cell and its organelles through symbiogenesis; the origin of algae through primary and secondary symbiosis and dinoflagellates through tertiary symbiosis; the superorganism and holobiont as units of evolution; how endosymbiosis induces speciation in multicellular life forms; transferrable and non-transferrable plasmids and how they symbiotically interact with their host; the means by which pro- and eukaryotic organisms transfer genes laterally (bacterial transformation, transduction and conjugation as well as transposons and other mobile genetic elements); hybridization and divergence with gene flow in sexually-reproducing individuals; current (human) microbiome and viriome studies that impact our knowledge concerning the evolution of organismal health and acquired immunity; and how symbiosis and symbiogenesis can be modelled in computational evolution.

Tree Thinking: An Introduction to Phylogenetic Biology
Tree Thinking: An Introduction to Phylogenetic Biology

Author: David A. Baum

Publisher: Roberts

Published: 2012-08-10

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781936221165

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Baum and Smith, both professors evolutionary biology and researchers in the field of systematics, present this highly accessible introduction to phylogenetics and its importance in modern biology. Ever since Darwin, the evolutionary histories of organisms have been portrayed in the form of branching trees or “phylogenies.” However, the broad significance of the phylogenetic trees has come to be appreciated only quite recently. Phylogenetics has myriad applications in biology, from discovering the features present in ancestral organisms, to finding the sources of invasive species and infectious diseases, to identifying our closest living (and extinct) hominid relatives. Taking a conceptual approach, Tree Thinking introduces readers to the interpretation of phylogenetic trees, how these trees can be reconstructed, and how they can be used to answer biological questions. Examples and vivid metaphors are incorporated throughout, and each chapter concludes with a set of problems, valuable for both students and teachers. Tree Thinking is must-have textbook for any student seeking a solid foundation in this fundamental area of evolutionary biology.

Edge of Extinction #1: The Ark Plan
Edge of Extinction #1: The Ark Plan

Author: Laura Martin

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2016-05-10

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0062416243

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Jurassic World meets Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in this epic new middle grade series full of heart-pounding action and breathtaking chills! "Amazing adventures!" raves Brightly.com as they recommend Edge of Extinction as a 2016 Holiday Gift for Tween Readers. One hundred and fifty years ago, the first dinosaurs were cloned. Soon after, they replaced humans at the top of the food chain. The only way to survive was to move into underground compounds. . . . Five years ago, Sky Mundy’s father vanished from North Compound without a trace. Now she has just stumbled on a clue that not only suggests his disappearance is just the tip of an even larger mystery, but also points directly to the surface. To find her dad—and possibly even save the world—Sky and her best friend, Shawn, must break out of their underground home and venture topside to a land reclaimed by nature and ruled by dinosaurs. Perfect for fans of Brandon Mull, Lisa McMann, and Rick Riordan, this exhilarating debut novel follows two courageous friends who must survive in a lost world that’s as dangerous as they’ve always feared but also unlike anything they could ever have imagined.

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

Author: Julia Alvarez

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Published: 2010-01-12

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 1616200987

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From the international bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and Afterlife, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents is "poignant...powerful... Beautifully captures the threshold experience of the new immigrant, where the past is not yet a memory." (The New York Times Book Review) Julia Alvarez’s new novel, The Cemetery of Untold Stories, is coming April 2, 2024. Pre-order now! Acclaimed writer Julia Alvarez’s beloved first novel gives voice to four sisters as they grow up in two cultures. The García sisters—Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía—and their family must flee their home in the Dominican Republic after their father’s role in an attempt to overthrow brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo is discovered. They arrive in New York City in 1960 to a life far removed from their existence in the Caribbean. In the wondrous but not always welcoming U.S.A., their parents try to hold on to their old ways as the girls try find new lives: by straightening their hair and wearing American fashions, and by forgetting their Spanish. For them, it is at once liberating and excruciating to be caught between the old world and the new. Here they tell their stories about being at home—and not at home—in America. "Alvarez helped blaze the trail for Latina authors to break into the literary mainstream, with novels like In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents winning praise from critics and gracing best-seller lists across the Americas."—Francisco Cantú, The New York Times Book Review "A clear-eyed look at the insecurity and yearning for a sense of belonging that are a part of the immigrant experience . . . Movingly told." —The Washington Post Book World

The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands
The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands

Author: Dr. Laura Schlessinger

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-03-17

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 0061796743

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The #1 National Bestseller In her most provocative book yet, America's top radio talk show host, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, urgently reminds women that to take proper care of their husbands is to ensure themselves the happiness and satisfaction they deserve in marriage. Women want to be in love, get married and live happily ever after, yet countless women call Dr. Laura, unhappy in their marriages and seemingly at a loss to understand the incredible power they have over their men to create the kind of home life they yearn for. In the Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, Dr. Laura provides real-life examples and real-life solutions on how to wield that power to attain all the sexual pleasure, intimacy, love, joy, and peace desired in life. Dr. Laura's simple principles have changed the lives of millions. Now they can change yours.