Autism and Creativity is a stimulating study of male creativity and autism, arguing that a major genetic endowment is a prerequisite of genius, and that cultural and environmental factors are less significant than has often been claimed.
Chapters on the diagnosis and psychology of autism set the scene for a detailed examination of a number of important historical figures. For example:
* in the Indian mathematician Ramanujan, the classic traits of Asperger's syndrome are shown to have coexisted with an extraordinary level of creativity
* more unexpectedly, from the fields of philosophy, politics and literature, scrutiny of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sir Keith Joseph, Eamon de Valera, Lewis Carroll and William Butler Yeats reveals classical autistic features.

Autism and Creativity will prove fascinating reading not only for professionals and students in the field of autism and Asperger's syndrome, but for anyone wanting to know how individuals presenting autistic features have on many occasions changed the way we understand society.

Aliens are among us already and their activities have increased enormously with the arrival of the new millennium. Journey with the author as he examines human/extraterrestrial interaction from ancient times to the present. Sightings, contact, and abduction cases are all considered, as well as a detailed study of the evidence for life on other planets, especially on Mars and the Moon. Become part of the search for extraterrestrial life and attempts to communicate with it. Explore the coverups and conspiracies, doomsday scenarios, and the possibility that the increase in UFO activity represents an attempt by extraterrestrials to encourage us to change direction and work together for the salvation of our planet. Or...is there a much more sinister plan afoot? Prediction: By the year 2030, we will have definite proof of the existence of intelligent life on other planets. Mysteries beckon.

Reconstruction is one of the most complex, overlooked, and misunderstood periods of American history. The thirteen essays in this volume address the multiple struggles to make good on President Abraham Lincoln’s promise of a “new birth of freedom” in the years following the Civil War, as well as the counter-efforts including historiographical ones—to undermine those struggles. The forms these struggles took varied enormously, extended geographically beyond the former Confederacy, influenced political and racial thought internationally, and remain open to contestation even today. The fight to establish and maintain meaningful freedoms for America’s Black population led to the apparently concrete and permanent legal form of the three key Reconstruction Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as well as the revised state constitutions, but almost all of the latter were overturned by the end of the century, and even the former are not necessarily out of jeopardy. And it was not just the formerly enslaved who were gaining and losing freedoms. Struggles over freedom, citizenship, and rights can be seen in a variety of venues. At times, gaining one freedom might endanger another. How we remember Reconstruction and what we do with that memory continues to influence politics, especially the politics of race, in the contemporary United States. Offering analysis of educational and professional expansion, legal history, armed resistance, the fate of Black soldiers, international diplomacy post-1865 and much more, the essays collected here draw attention to some of the vital achievements of the Reconstruction period while reminding us that freedoms can be won, but they can also be lost.

Brings dramatically to life the nature of the combat between the hunter and hunted at sea, roles that could switch at the drop of a depth charge or the flick of a button to launch a torpedo.

Contents:
Introduction. Diagnostic Issues. Psychology of HFA/ASP. Ludwig Wittgenstein. Part 1: Psychobiography. Part 2: Influence of Wittgenstein's Personality on his Philosophy. Sir Keith Joseph. Eamon de Valera. William Butler Yeats. Lewis Carroll. Ramanujan. Conclusion.

Reconstruction is one of the most complex, overlooked, and misunderstood periods of American history. The thirteen essays in this volume address the multiple struggles to make good on President Abraham Lincoln's promise of a "new birth of freedom" in the years following the Civil War, as well as the counter-efforts including historiographical ones-to undermine those struggles. The forms these struggles took varied enormously, extended geographically beyond the former Confederacy, influenced political and racial thought internationally, and remain open to contestation even today. The fight to establish and maintain meaningful freedoms for America's Black population led to the apparently concrete and permanent legal form of the three key Reconstruction Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as well as the revised state constitutions, but almost all of the latter were overturned by the end of the century, and even the former are not necessarily out of jeopardy. And it was not just the formerly enslaved who were gaining and losing freedoms. Struggles over freedom, citizenship, and rights can be seen in a variety of venues. At times, gaining one freedom might endanger another. How we remember Reconstruction and what we do with that memory continues to influence politics, especially the politics of race, in the contemporary United States. Offering analysis of educational and professional expansion, legal history, armed resistance, the fate of Black soldiers, international diplomacy post-1865 and much more, the essays collected here draw attention to some of the vital achievements of the Reconstruction period while reminding us that freedoms can be won, but they can also be lost.

If you're a programmer new to regular expressions, this easy-to-follow guide is a great place to start. You'll learn the fundamentals step-by-step with the help of numerous examples, discovering first-hand how to match, extract, and transform text by matching specific words, characters, and patterns.

Regular expressions are an essential part of a programmer's toolkit, available in various Unix utlilities as well as programming languages such as Perl, Java, JavaScript, and C#. When you've finished this book, you'll be familiar with the most commonly used syntax in regular expressions, and you'll understand how using them will save you considerable time.Discover what regular expressions are and how they workLearn many of the differences between regular expressions used with command-line tools and in various programming languagesApply simple methods for finding patterns in text, including digits, letters, Unicode characters, and string literalsLearn how to use zero-width assertions and lookaroundsWork with groups, backreferences, character classes, and quantifiersUse regular expressions to mark up plain text with HTML5

XML, the Extensible Markup Language, is everywhere: the syntax of choice for newly designed document formats across almost all computer applications. Now used daily by developers, XML is living up to its reputation as one of the most important developments in document interchange in the history of computing.

A perennial bestseller, the handy "XML Pocket Reference" from O'Reilly has been revised once again to give you quick access to the latest goods. In addition to its comprehensive look at XML, this third edition has been updated with new material on Namespaces and XML Schema--considered among the most important elements in current XML use--along with RELAX NG and Schematron, additional powerful tools for describing XML document structures.

Like other titles in O'Reilly's Pocket Reference series, the "XML Pocket Reference," 3rd Edition features a well-organized format that gets right to the point. As a result, it's already won over the allegiance of developers everywhere. If you need XML answers quick and on the fly, this compact book is most definitely the book for you.

The second edition of this highly regarded textbook is designed to introduce students at the tertiary level to both Systemic Functional Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis. It develops critical analytical skills by rooting analysis in SFL methodology so that students can learn to analyze a range of discourse types. Each chapter builds a methodological foundation for the development of critical discourse analytical skills. SFL provides novice analysts with a rich set of resources for CDA and equips them to better reflect on what language is doing and why. The Power of Language offers explanations along with a range of sample analyses to illustrate theory and provide applications of the methodologies introduced in each chapter. Students not only learn by studying a number of analyses but carry out their own analytical work on other samples, thus gaining experience. Each chapter also includes examples of analyses by well know researchers so that novice analysts become familiar with various approaches to analysis.This new edition has been thoroughly updated throughout and features an expanded first chapter on language and international conflict, a new second chapter focusing on language and political fear, an expanded chapter on multimodal communication and an entirely new chapter on language and social media. Other chapters have been updated with new sample analyses and activities.

Although Ruby is an easy language to learn, in the heat of action you may find that you can't remember the correct syntax for a conditional or the name of a method. This handy pocket reference offers brief yet clear explanations of Ruby's core components, from operators to reserved words to data structures to method syntax, highlighting those key features that you'll likely use every day when coding Ruby. Whether you've come to Ruby because of the Rails web development framework --Ruby's killer app -- or simply because it's a relatively clean, powerful and expressive language that's useful for a lot of applications, the Ruby Pocket Reference is organized to help you find what you need quickly. This book not only will get you up to speed on how Ruby works, it provides you with a handy reference you can use anywhere, anytime.In this book, you find essential information on: Reserved words, operators, comments, numbers, variables, ranges, and symbols Predefined variables andglobal constants Conditional statements, method use, classes, and modules (mixins) Lists of methods from the Object, String, Array, and Hash classes and the Kernel module sprintf andtime formatting directories Interactive Ruby (irb) and the Ruby debugger Ruby documentation You also get information on the RubyGems package utility and Rake, a build tool similar to make. If you're using Ruby daily and just want the facts-fast-Ruby Pocket Reference is your book.

XSLT is a powerful language for transforming XML documents into something else. That something else can be an HTML document, another XML document, a Portable Document Format (PDF) file, a Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file, a Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) file, Java code, or a number of other things. You write an XSLT stylesheet to define the rules for transforming an XML document, and the XSLT processor does the work.

As useful as XSLT is, its peculiar characteristics make it a difficult language in which to get started. In fact, newcomers are often a little dazed on first contact. "Learning XSLT" offers a hands-on introduction to help them get up to speed with XSLT quickly. The book will help web developers and designers understand this powerful but often mystifying template-driven and functional-styled language, getting them over the many differences between XSLT and the more conventional programming languages.

"Learning XSLT" moves smoothly from the simple to complex, illustrating all aspects of XSLT 1.0 through step-by-step examples that you'll practice as you work through the book. Thorough in its coverage of the language, the book makes few assumptions about what you may already know. You'll learn about XSLT's template-based syntax, how XSLT templates work with each other, and gain an understanding of XSLT variables. "Learning XSLT" also explains how the XML Path Language (XPath) is used by XSLT and provides a glimpse of what the future holds for XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0.

The ability to transform one XML vocabulary to another is fundamental to exploiting the power of XML. "Learning XSLT" is a carefully paced, example-rich introduction to XSLT that will have you understanding and using XSLT on your own in no time.

College life is particularly stressful for students with Asperger Syndrome (AS) and the resources that colleges provide for such students are often inadequate. This much needed guide provides information to help these students prepare successfully for the rites and rituals of studying, interact with staff and fellow students, cope with expectations and pressures, and understand their academic and domestic responsibilities. How will I cope with the workload? What do I do if I feel ill? How do I make friends and initiate relationships with the opposite sex? Drawing on first hand interviews with AS students and direct clinical experience, the authors address these and many other questions thoughtfully and thoroughly, making practical recommendations. Succeeding in College with Asperger Syndrome demystifies the range of college experiences for students with AS. It is a must for these students, their parents and counsellors alike, providing benefits that will continue throughout the college years and beyond.

The second edition of this highly regarded textbook is designed to introduce students at the tertiary level to both Systemic Functional Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis. It develops critical analytical skills by rooting analysis in SFL methodology so that students can learn to analyze a range of discourse types. Each chapter builds a methodological foundation for the development of critical discourse analytical skills. SFL provides novice analysts with a rich set of resources for CDA and equips them to better reflect on what language is doing and why. The Power of Language offers explanations along with a range of sample analyses to illustrate theory and provide applications of the methodologies introduced in each chapter. Students not only learn by studying a number of analyses but carry out their own analytical work on other samples, thus gaining experience. Each chapter also includes examples of analyses by well know researchers so that novice analysts become familiar with various approaches to analysis.This new edition has been thoroughly updated throughout and features an expanded first chapter on language and international conflict, a new second chapter focusing on language and political fear, an expanded chapter on multimodal communication and an entirely new chapter on language and social media. Other chapters have been updated with new sample analyses and activities.

What makes mathematicians tick? How do their minds process formulas and concepts that, for most of the rest of the world's population, remain mysterious and beyond comprehension? Is there a connection between mathematical creativity and mental illness?

In The Mind of the Mathematician, internationally famous mathematician Ioan James and accomplished psychiatrist Michael Fitzgerald look at the complex world of mathematics and the mind. Together they explore the behavior and personality traits that tend to fit the profile of a mathematician. They discuss mathematics and the arts, savants, gender and mathematical ability, and the impact of autism, personality disorders, and mood disorders.

These topics, together with a succinct analysis of some of the great mathematical personalities of the past three centuries, combine to form an eclectic and fascinating blend of story and scientific inquiry.

Developers and system administrators alike are uncovering the true power of XML, the Extensible Markup Language that enables data to be sent over the Internet from one computer platform to another or one application to another and retain its original format. Flexible enough to be customized for applications as diverse as web sites, electronic data interchange, voice mail systems, wireless devices, web services, and more, XML is quickly becoming ubiquitous.

"XML Hacks" is a roll-up-your-sleeves guide that distills years of ingenious XML hacking into a complete set of practical tips, tricks, and tools for web developers, system administrators, and programmers who want to go far beyond basic tutorials to leverage the untapped power of XML.

With plenty of useful real-world projects that illustrate how to define, read, create, and manipulate XML documents, "XML Hacks" shows readers how to put XML's power to work on the Internet and within productivity applications. Each Hack in this book can be read easily in a few minutes, saving programmers and administrators countless hours of searching for the right answer. And this is an O'Reilly Hacks book, so it's not just practical, imminently useful, and time-saving. It's also fun.

From Anatomy of an XML Document to Exploring SOAP Messages "XML Hacks" shows you how to save time and accomplish more with fewer resources. If you want much more than the average XML user--to explore and experiment, do things you didn't know you could do with XML, discover clever shortcuts, and show off just a little--this invaluable book is a must-have.

A surprise discovery in the 1980s unearthed the remarkable early twentieth century photographs of Berry & Co., now held in Te Papa's collection. Amongst the thousands of mystery images are more than a hundred of ordinary First World War servicemen, taken directly before the men left to fight. But who were they? A heartfelt public response has helped reunite many soldiers with their identities, and careful research has brought more to light. Though these soldiers represent only a tiny fraction of the thousands of men who departed to join the fighting overseas, through their poignant stories we are granted a remarkable lens on New Zealanders' experiences - their hope, anxiety, fear, pride and love - over the span of the Frist World War. Published alongside the TVNZ documentary, Berry Boys features the full collection of beautifully reproduced portraits, accompanied by the unique stories of the soldiers and their loved ones. Some died overseas, others lived long after the war and all were changed by it. Although they are only a fraction of the thousands of men who served, they offer a potent snapshot of the New Zealand of the time - and the changing face of the First World War itself.

Curated by noted Picasso biographer John Richardson, this exhibition catalogue examines the intersection of Picasso s bullfighting imagery with the mythological (and biographical) compositions of the 1930 s. Including works dating from 1897 to 1972, this fully illustrated catalogue presents a career-long survey of Picasso s engagement with ancient bullfighting and mythological narratives and includes essays by noted Picasso scholars Michael FitzGerald and Gertje Utley.

The nature of artistic creativity and its relationship with 'difference' has intrigued people for centuries. The Genesis of Artistic Creativity is a revealing exploration of the lives of 21 famous writers, philosophers, musicians and painters including George Orwell, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Andy Warhol and many others, in light of the recognized criteria for diagnosis of high-functioning autism and Asperger's Syndrome (AS). Having diagnosed hundreds of individuals with AS during his professional career, Professor Fitzgerald examines here the social behaviour, language, humour, and obsessive interests and routines that accompanied creative genius in the past four centuries. From Herman Melville's eccentric breakfast habits and Simone Weil's intense dislike of being touched by other people to Ludwig van Beethoven's inappropriate marriage proposals and Vincent van Gogh's inability to form satisfying relationships with others, the author offers compelling insights into the association between creativity and autism spectrum disorders.; This celebration of artistic genius and AS will prove a fascinating read not only for professionals in the field of autism and AS, but for anyone interes