Scott Poulson-Bryant brings the heat in this rip-roaring tale of secrets, sex, and betrayal. On a steamy June day in New York City, mega-star rapper TNT gathers a group of four successful men together, childhood friends who called themselves "the VIPs," signaling the big dreams they all once had. Leo Bradford is a gay publishing magnate who is learning to love again after a devastating tragedy. Barry Chambers is a playboy attorney with a working-class background who is starting to realize that the chip he's carried on his shoulders all these years doesn't go too well with the bespoke suits that have become his trademark. Joey Ramirez is a high-flying fashion designer who has managed to triumph over a life of abuse and neglect to become one of the most successful clothiers in the world. And Duke Maynard is a recently-retired NFL star facing the challenges of successfully transferring his competitive energies from his gridiron past to his entertainment world future. These four men have a history and bond that could be torn apart by a night of passion one of them had long ago. The VIPs, who haven't seen one another in years, are greeted at the Hotel Gansevoort by an openly hostile TNT, who asks them the bombshell question: "Which one of you bastards is my father?" Shocking, hilarious, suspenseful, and, ultimately, incredible moving, The VIPs will have readers furiously turning the pages to find out who the real father is.
Things needed to change...and they did. Omar realizes that the 80s have to be left behind. Noah gives Omar the idea of how to regenerate society. What follows is another story.
Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal Building Unified Contact Centers Rue Green, CCIE® No. 9269 The definitive guide to deploying Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal IVRs in any contact center environment Thousands of companies are replacing legacy ACD/TDM-based contact centers with pure IP-based unified contact center solutions. One of these solutions is quickly earning market leadership: Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal (CVP). Now, one of the leading Cisco CVP experts brings together everything network and telephony professionals need to successfully implement production Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solutions with CVP: architectural guidelines, deployment best practices, detailed insights for design and sizing, and more. CCIE Rue Green guides you through designing unified contact centers with CVP, and deploying proven infrastructures to support your designs. The author first explains CVP’s architecture, outlining its key advantages and opportunities for integration and illuminating the design challenges it presents. Next, he guides you through addressing each of these challenges, covering all CVP components and tools and offering detailed insights available in no other book. Using this book’s detailed working configurations and examples, you can minimize configuration errors, reduce downtime, strengthen monitoring, and drive maximum value from any CVP-based unified call center solution. Rue Green, CCIE No. 9269 (Routing & Switching and Voice), CISSP, MCSE, MCITP is a Technical Leader for the Customer Collaboration Service Line within Cisco Advanced Services, where he focuses on unified contact center architectures and deployment methodologies. He currently acts in a delivery architect role for Unified CVP, Unified ICM, and Cisco Unified Communications Manager for Unified Contact Center Solutions. He has spent the last 21 years working within different roles related to the architecture, design, and implementation of large voice and data networks, including several years working with complex contact center solutions. · Discover CVP’s powerful capabilities and advantages · Understand how CVP’s components fit together into a unified architecture · Utilize CVP native components: Call Server, VXML Server, Reporting Server, Operations Console Server, and Cisco Unified Call Studio · Integrate non-native components such as IOS devices, Unified ICM, UCM, content load balancers, and third-party servers · Choose the right deployment model for your organization · Implement detailed call flows for Standalone, Call Director, Comprehensive, and VRU-only deployment models · Design Unified CVP for high availability · Efficiently deliver media via streaming, caching, and other techniques · Address crucial sizing, QoS, network latency, and security considerations · Successfully upgrade from older versions or H.323 platforms · Isolate and troubleshoot faults in native and non-native CVP components · Design virtualized Unified CVP deployments using UCS This IP communications book is part of the Cisco Press® Networking Technology Series. IP communications titles from Cisco Press help networking professionals understand voice and IP telephony technologies, plan and design converged networks, and implement network solutions for increased productivity.
The best essays from America’s premier cultural historian Jackson Lears has been hailed as the “dean of American cultural history” and “one of the few pre-eminent historians of our time.” Well known for his elegant, daring scholarship on topics such as antimodernism, advertising, and luck, Lears has also been a critic and essayist whose public-facing writings—published in journals such as the New Republic, The Nation, the London Review of Books, and the New York Review of Books—have explored a variety of subjects and themes, both contemporary and historical, from modern environmentalism to liberal arts education, from the plastics industry to the happiness industry, from Theodore Roosevelt to Seymour Hersh, from Van Wyck Brooks to Anne Applebaum. The essays collected here, written over the course of over forty years, are absorbing reading for anyone interested in American history, culture, or intellectual life and provide models of an engaged critic at work on topics and figures both high and low. Offering compelling lenses on historical subjects while setting contemporary culture in rich historical perspective, the essays bridge the gap between history and social commentary and afford a sweeping view of the changing intellectual scene from 1977 to the present.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 17th International Symposium on VLSI Design and Test, VDAT 2013, held in Jaipur, India, in July 2013. The 44 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 162 submissions. The papers discuss the frontiers of design and test of VLSI components, circuits and systems. They are organized in topical sections on VLSI design, testing and verification, embedded systems, emerging technology.
Amid widespread and increasing alarm in Western strategic and foreign policy circles following Russia’s capture of Crimea, support for rebels in Ukraine, and military intervention in Syria, this study provides a timely and sophisticated analysis of the nature and intentions of post-Soviet government under President Vladimir Putin. Based on both Russian and non-Russian sources, this book examines the enduring Cold War legacies underpinning Western perceptions of contemporary Russia. It analyzes the ways in which the West has interpreted and reacted to Russia’s domestic authoritarianism and foreign policy behavior and argues for diplomatic engagement based on liberal pluralism.
Architecture is very multi-disciplinary, attracting many different professions. This is reflected in the contributions contained in this volume that were originally presented at the 9th International Conference on Harmonisation between Architecture and Nature. The included works review the challenges and new opportunities of contemporary architecture as a result of advances in design and new building technologies, as well as the development of new materials. Never before in history have architects and engineers had such a range of new processes and products open to them. In spite of that, the construction industry lags behind all others in taking advantage of a wide variety of new technologies. This is understandable, due to the inherent complexity and uniqueness of each architectural project. Advances in computer and information systems, including robotics, offers the possibility of developing new architectural forms, construction products and building technologies that are just now starting to emerge. Changes have also taken place in the way modern society works and lives, due to the impact of modern technologies. Patterns of work have been disrupted and changed, affecting transportation and the home environment. The demand is for a new type of habitat that can respond to the changes and the consequent requirements in terms of the urban environment. Such topics are dealt with as building technologies, design by passive systems, design with nature, cultural sensitivity, life cycle assessment, resources and rehabilitation and many others including case studies from many different places around the world.
An in-depth understanding of energy technology, sources, conversion, storage, transport and conservation is crucial for developing a sustainable and economically viable energy infrastructure. This need, for example, is addressed in university courses with a special focus on the energy mix of renewable and depletable energy resources. Energy makes our lives comfortable, and the existence of amenities such as heaters, cars, warm water, household appliances and electrical light is characteristic for a developed economy. Supplying the industrial or individual energy consumer with energy 24 hours a day is a non-trivial challenge, especially in times where the energy is coming from very diverse resources such as oil, gas, nuclear fuels, wind, sun, or waves. This book gives physics, chemistry, engineering, and materials science students insights in the basics of energy and energy technology. It was developed along a successful course for advanced bachelor or graduate students and is written in a didactic style. The problems and solutions at the end of each chapter are ideal for exams and make self-study easy. Topics covered include energy from fossil and nuclear fuels, renewable sources, energy transport, storage, and conservation.
ABC of Dementia is a practical guide to help healthcare professionals develop knowledge, skills, confidence and an understanding of dementia, in order to support those with dementia to live well. It begins with the cognitive disabilities and underlying brain diseases that define dementia, before moving on to diagnostic assessment and early intervention for dementia. There is a focus on the experience of the person with dementia and their families, highlighting the journey from diagnosis to end of life, including the role of person-centred care, and the limited therapeutic options available. Separate chapters address dementia in acute hospital settings, primary care, and care for those with the most severe challenges, as well as the specific needs of younger people developing dementia. The ethical and legal context of dementia care is also outlined. From a multidisciplinary author team, ABC of Dementia is a valuable resource for general practitioners, family physicians and other health care professionals caring for patients with dementia and related disorders. It is also relevant for geriatricians, psychologists, specialist and practice nurses, and nursing home staff.
