Sometimes heroes can be found in the most unlikely places. Fourteen-year-old Clarence Feather knows no world beyond desolate Mayfair Heights. Three years ago, his mother was killed before his eyes by a stray bullet. When his father becomes unable to keep the family afloat, Clarence is manipulated into running drugs. But he longs to be a good person, in spite of the seemingly impossible odds. Wandering through his neighborhood, Clarence meets Mona, a huge albino Great Dane. The two develop a deep bond. When he is forced to attend a dog fight as a rite of passage, Clarence realizes that Mona isn’t safe, and neither is he. Can he find a way to protect Mona? Can he survive life in Mayfair Heights and still become the person his mother wanted him to be? A novel about self-reliance, difficult choices, and imagination in the face of danger and isolation, Wirewalker is a masterfully written debut that blends gritty realism with moments of fantastical escape.
You can never step in the same river twice, goes the old adage of philosophy. An observation on the transitory nature of fluids in motion, this saying also describes the endless variations researchers face when studying human movement. Understanding these biodynamics-why the wirewalker doesn't fall-requires a grasp of the constant fluctuations and fine tunings which maintain balance in the complex, fluid system of human locomotion. Taking a comprehensive approach to the phenomenon of locomotion, Biodynamics: Why the Wirewalker Doesn't Fall integrates physical laws and principles with concepts of fractals, chaos, and randomness. In so doing, it formulates a description of both the large-scale, smooth aspects of locomotion and the more minute, randomized mechanisms of this physiological process. Ideal for beginners in this subject, Biodynamics provides an elegant explanation without assuming the reader's understanding of complex physical principles or mathematical equations. Chapter topics include: * Dimensions, measurement, and scaling * Mechanics and dynamics * Biometrics * Conservation of momentum * Biomechanics * Bioelectricity * Bioenergetics * Fluid mechanics and dynamics * Data analysis * Biostatistics Packed with problem sets, examples, and original line drawings, Biodynamics is an invaluable text for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and instructors in medicine, biology, physiology, biophysics, and bioengineering.
The International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER) is a series of bi-annual meetings, which are organized, in a rotating fashion around North America, Europe and Asia/Oceania. The goal of ISER is to provide a forum for research in robotics that focuses on novelty of theoretical contributions validated by experimental results. The meetings are conceived to bring together, in a small group setting, researchers from around the world who are in the forefront of experimental robotics research. This unique reference presents the latest advances across the various fields of robotics, with ideas that are not only conceived conceptually but also explored experimentally. It collects robotics contributions on the current developments and new directions in the field of experimental robotics, which are based on the papers presented at the 13the ISER held in Québec City, Canada, at the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac, on June 18-21, 2012. This present thirteenth edition of Experimental Robotics edited by Jaydev P. Desai, Gregory Dudek, Oussama Khatib, and Vijay Kumar offers a collection of a broad range of topics in field and human-centered robotics.
This volume contains research papers reporting on the results of the Link Foundation Fellows in Energy, Simulation Training, and Ocean Engineering and Instrumentation. The work covers a wide variety of research topics carried out at leading universities and colleges. Brian J. Thompson is Provost Emeritus of the University of Rochester.
Combining literary analysis with a practical introduction to interdisciplinary literary geography, Literary Geograp hie s examines key elements of Colum McCann's 2009 novel, Let the Great World Spi n . Hones examines concepts such as narrative space, literary and academic collaboration, and the geographies of creation, production, and reception.
Now a major motion picture directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, an artist of the air re-creates his six-year plot to pull off an act of incomparable beauty and imagination. More than a quarter century before September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center was immortalized by an act of unprecedented daring and beauty. In August 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit boldly—and illegally—fixed a rope between the tops of the still-young Twin Towers, a quarter mile off the ground. At daybreak, thousands of spectators gathered to watch in awe and adulation as he traversed the rope a full eight times in the course of an hour. In The Walk, Petit recounts the six years he spent preparing for this achievement, a tour de force of imagination and tenacity. Petit’s achievement made headlines around the world. In this stunning book, Petit tells the dramatic story of this history-making walk, from conception and clandestine planning to the performance and its aftermath. It draws on Petit’s own journals, in which he sketched and scribbled everything from his budgets to his strategies for rigging a high wire between two of the most secure towers in the world. It is a fitting tribute to those lost-but-not-forgotten symbols of human aspiration—the Twin Towers. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
This book provides a lens through which modern society is shown to depend on complex networks for its stability. One way to achieve this understanding is through the development of a new kind of science, one that is not explicitly dependent on the traditional disciplines of biology, economics, physics, sociology and so on; a science of networks. This text reviews, in non-mathematical language, what we know about the development of science in the twenty-first century and how that knowledge influences our world. In addition, it distinguishes the two-tiered science of the twentieth century, based on experiment and theory (data and knowledge) from the three-tiered science of experiment, computation and theory (data, information and knowledge) of the twenty-first century in everything from psychophysics to climate change. This book is unique in that it addresses two parallel lines of argument. The first line is general and intended for a lay audience, but one that is scientifically sophisticated, explaining how the paradigm of science has been changed to accommodate the computer and large-scale computation. The second line of argument addresses what some consider the seminal scientific problem of climate change. The authors show how a misunderstanding of the change in the scientific paradigm has led to a misunderstanding of complex phenomena in general, and the causes of global warming in particular.
The field of solid state ionics deals with ionically conducting materials in the solid state and numerous devices based on such materials. Solid state ionic materials cover a wide spectrum, ranging from inorganic crystalline and polycrystalline solids, ceramics, glasses, polymers, composites and nano-scale materials. A large number of Scientists in Asia are engaged in research in solid state ionic materials and devices and since 1988. The Asian Society for solid state ionics has played a key role in organizing a series of bi-ennial conferences on solid state ionics in different Asian countries. The contributions in this volume were presented at the 10th conference in the series organized by the Postgraduate Institute of Science (PGIS) and the Faculty of Science, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, which coincided with the 10th Anniversary of the Postgraduate Institute of Science (PGIS). The topics cover solid state ionic materials as well as such devices as solid state batteries, fuel cells, sensors, and electrochromic devices. The aspects covered include theoretical studies and modeling, experimental techniques, materials synthesis and characterization, device fabrication and characterization.
This book presents the first comprehensive examination of issues important to nursing from the perspective of Complexity Science. In this groundbreaking volume, scholars and nurse leaders explore key Complexity Science principles and the profound implications they hold for clinical practice, leadership, nursing theory development, research, policy making, and understanding human physiology. Nursing students, practicing nurses, nurse educators, leaders, researchers, and other healthcare professionals will find great value in the fresh insights Complexity Science brings to challenges facing nursing today. Changes in the practice of nursing, emerging new roles, as well as heightened emphasis on healthcare quality present both risk and opportunity. Nurses who understand the emerging science of complexity will be better prepared to creatively face these issues and improve health in broad and lasting new ways. For volume discounts contact info@plexusinstitute or call 609-298-2140.
