Who would have guessed in the 1960s that Michael Parker, a typical young Army officer, would turn into one of the most remarkable showmen of his generation? Michael Parker's creativity and originality - all too often achieved in the face of stifling bureaucracy - along with an ability to organise down to the last detail - meant he was in continuous demand to mastermind all kinds of events such as most of the British royal jubilees and birthday celebrations for The Queen, the Queen Mother. Other events included London's G7 conference, royal weddings in countries such as Jordan, victory commemorations, charity events and some of the world's largest military tattoos - Berlin, Edinburgh and the London Tournament. He records his triumphs and disasters and the inside story of some spectacular c**k-ups - although to the spectators and television audiences all might have seemed fine. The pundits thought The Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002 would be a non-event - "Who would come?" they said. But Michael Parker had no doubt that he could lay on a show that was worthy of the Queen - and of Great Britain. He was right and proved the critics wrong - 2 million people flocked down the Mall to Buckingham Palace to enjoy the celebrations he had helped organise. Some 25 years earlier his complex plans for the Queen's 1977 Silver Jubilee bonfires definitely did not go to plan - much to the Queen's amusement - and as for those fireworks in Hyde Park to celebrate Prince Charles and Diana's wedding - that's another story ...as is the escaping python at the Berlin Tattoo.

Part empathetic portrait of troubled souls and part Springsteenian ode to the promise and heartbreak of the highway . . . Told with . . . emotional complexity and subtlety. The New York TimesTwo strangers meet over the hood of a used car in Texas: Marcus, who is fleeing both his financial and personal failures; and Maria, who, after years of dodging her mistakes, has returned to her hometown to make amends. One looking forward, the other looking back, they face off over the car they both want and think they need--a low-slung sky-blue 1984 Buick Electra--and, after knowing each other for less than an hour, decide to buy the Buick together. Parker has crafted a surprising love story about the power of friendship and the ways we must learn to forgive ourselves if we are ever to move on. Parker s skillfully rendered story rolls like a restless, unpredictable west Texas river . . . the watershed moments happen not with sadness or blood or pain, but with cascades of laughter. It s through moments of unabashed humor, when Marcus and Maria let go and laugh, that his characters finally, and completely, connect. Which feels a lot like real life. The Denver Post Parker deftly captures his characters uncertainties and hesitations as they struggle to move away from regret and toward the absolution they so desire. Booklist Stylish . . . Engaging . . . Brings together a pair of unlikely but likeable protagonists. Publishers Weekly Michael Parker s best novel yet . . . He] extends his geographical and emotional ranges in this layered and nuanced story of heartbroken, debt-ridden, and atonement-seeking creatures much like many of us. Mark Richard, author of House of Prayer No. 2"

This book comes with 10 easy-to-do experiments and 230 exciting pictures. All aboard for a journey into the history and technology of rail travel! It covers everything from the 'iron horses' of the Wild West and Stephenson's Rocket to the luxurious Orient Express and today's high-speed vehicles. Step-by-step projects look at the technology behind trains - learn about forces and motion, build a bridge, construct a tunnel, and even make your own model locomotive and railway track. Stunning photographs and detailed illustrations evoke the spirit of train travel. Railways revolutionized the day-to-day lives of ordinary people around the world. This book charts the development of trains, from the early horse-drawn wagons used in mines and the first steam locomotives to the comfort and convenience of modern, streamlined passenger trains. Discover how the first underground railways were designed and constructed, and explore the latest high-tech designs. This book is a treasure trove of information for the young railway enthusiast and is ideal for families and school groups to explore together.

Acclaimed author Michael Parker tells the searing and unforgettable story of one decision that irrevocably changes the course of a young man's life. In the early 1970s, in Stovall, Texas, seventeen-year-old Earl-a loner, dreamer, lover of music and words-meets Tina, the new girl in town. Tina convinces Earl to drive her to see her mother in Austin, where Earl and Tina are quickly separated. Two days later, Earl is being questioned by the police about Tina's disappearance and the blood in the trunk of his car. But Earl can't remember what happened in Austin, and with little financial support from his working-class family, he is sentenced for a crime he did not commit. Forty years later, Earl is released into a world he can barely navigate. Settling in a small town on the Oregon coast, he attempts to establish a sense of freedom from both bars and razor wire and the emotional toll of incarceration. But just as Earl finds the rhythm he's always sought, his past returns to endanger the new life he's built. Steeped in the music and atmosphere of the 1970s, I Am the Light of This World is a gritty, gripping, and gorgeously written story of loss, redemption, and the power of the imagination, perfect for fans of Ron Rash, Rachel Kushner, and Laird Hunt.

Many medical professionals are now seeking to train in Cosmetic Practice, and there are many courses offering practical training and many texts offering detailed guides to the procedures; this text offers instead a helpful overview of the fundamentals involved and how they impact on practical skills, patient management, and potential complications. It constitutes the perfect guide to professional certification and beyond that to Cosmetic Practice. *Presents the starter in aesthetic practice with the fundamentals of minimally invasive treatments. *Offers a reliable resource for any medical professional wishing to certify in this specialty. *Combines material on both main treatment and on aesthetic patient management.

Architecture is a powerful medium for representing, ordering and classifying the world, and understanding the use of space is fundamental to archaeological inquiry. Architecture and Order draws on the work of archaeologists, social theorists and architects to explore the way in which people relate to the architecture which surrounds them. In many societies, houses and tombs have encoded cultural meanings and values which are invoked and recalled through the practices of daily life. Chapters include explorations of the early farming r archi*eye of Europe, from before the use of metals, to the Classical and Medieval worlds of the Mediterranean and Europe. Research of the recent past and present include an overview of hunter-gatherers' camp organization, a reassessment of the use of space amongst the Dogon of West Africa and an examination of mental disorders relating to the use of space in Britain. The volume goes beyond the implication that culture determines form to develop an approach that integrates meaning and practice.

Michael Parker's vast and involving novel about pirates and slaves, treason and treasures, madness and devotion, takes place on a tiny island battered by storms and cut off from the world. Inspired by two little-known moments in history, it begins in 1813, when Theodosia Burr, en route to New York by ship to meet her father, Aaron Burr, disappears off the coast of North Carolina. It ends a hundred and fifty years later, when the last three inhabitants of a remote island - two elderly white women and the black man who takes care of them - are forced to leave their beloved spot of land. Parker tells an enduring story about what we'll sacrifice for love, and what we won't.

This title was first published in 2003.Developments in genetic science are opening up new possibilities for human beings;A both the creationA and the shaping of human life are now possible in the laboratory. As these techniques develop, questions are increasingly asked about how far everything that is scientifically possible should - morally, legally and socially - be pursued.A Whilst much attention andA policy-making has focussed on the development of regulation of technologies affecting human reproduction, regulation where plants and animals are concerned is much more limited. In this book, developments in genetics are addressed in the broad sense by an international range of contributors.A This includesA not only issues such as eugenics and the modification of the human embryo, but also the genetic modification of plants and animals in the pursuit of commerce, agriculture and biomedical research. A This book is published in association with the Society for Applied Philosophy

This title was first published in 2003.Developments in genetic science are opening up new possibilities for human beings;A both the creationA and the shaping of human life are now possible in the laboratory. As these techniques develop, questions are increasingly asked about how far everything that is scientifically possible should - morally, legally and socially - be pursued.A Whilst much attention andA policy-making has focussed on the development of regulation of technologies affecting human reproduction, regulation where plants and animals are concerned is much more limited. In this book, developments in genetics are addressed in the broad sense by an international range of contributors.A This includesA not only issues such as eugenics and the modification of the human embryo, but also the genetic modification of plants and animals in the pursuit of commerce, agriculture and biomedical research. A This book is published in association with the Society for Applied Philosophy

Both male and female poets cross the gender line: men assume a female voice and women a male voice.
The Routledge Anthology of Cross-Gendered Verse is a fascinating collection of such poems, beginning in the age of Chaucer and working its way through to the present day. Together these poems offer a unique collection of masks, personae and voices, rife with issues of class, gender and race.
Alan Parker and Mark Willhardt, in bringing together these poems for the first time, assert an entirely new paradigm; a theoretical and practical reading of a heretofore undefined genre. They also provide a critical introduction which synthesizes traditional literary debates with current gender theory and, through the lens of historical, literary, social and theoretical issues, present a new way to interpret these 'ventriloquized' poems.
The Routledge Anthology of Cross-Gendered Verse provides a wealth of material for students and teachers of literature and gender studies. It is a compelling collection which will also appeal to poetry lovers.

The Routledge Anthology of Cross-Gendered Verse is an entertaining journey through six centuries of poets writing in the voice of the opposite sex. Whether concerned with the playful or the tragic, the mundane or the mystical, each poem reveals a new depth in this unique and engaging anthology.
Poems both canonical and less traditional, from early modern England to present-day Africa, are in this remarkable collection. In a lively introduction and conclusion the editors explore the historical, cultural and theoretical context of the poems and of cross-gendered writing. They also provide an extensive bibliography of further reading.
Poetry lovers will delight in The Routledge Anthology of Cross-Gendered Verse. It will also be a valuable contribution to issues of gender, masks and voices in fields such as literary, gender and performance studies and creative writing.
Over eighty poets are represented here, including: Geoffrey Chaucer, John Donne, Mary Sidney Wroth, Aphra Behn, Alexander Pope, William Blake, Robert Burns, William Wordsworth, Robert Browning, Emily Bronte, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, W.B. Yeats, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, Langston Hughes, W.H. Auden, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Suniti Namjoshi Ai, Yusef Kumunyakaa, Heather McHugh, Rita Dove.

Many medical professionals are now seeking to train in Cosmetic Practice, and there are many courses offering practical training and many texts offering detailed guides to the procedures; this text offers instead a helpful overview of the fundamentals involved and how they impact on practical skills, patient management, and potential complications. It constitutes the perfect guide to professional certification and beyond that to Cosmetic Practice. *Presents the starter in aesthetic practice with the fundamentals of minimally invasive treatments. *Offers a reliable resource for any medical professional wishing to certify in this specialty. *Combines material on both main treatment and on aesthetic patient management.

Puritan politician, lawyer, and lay theologian John Winthrop fled England in 1630 when it looked like Charles I had successfully blocked all hopes of passing Puritan-inspired reforms in Parliament. Leading a migration, he came to New England in the hopes of creating an ideal Puritan community and eventually became the governor of Massachusetts. Winthrop is remembered for his role in the Puritan migration to the colonies and for delivering what is probably the most famous lay sermon in American history, "A Model of Christian Charity." In it he proclaimed that New England would be "a city upon a hill"--an example for future colonies. In John Winthrop: Founding the City upon a Hill, Michael Parker examines the political and religious history of this iconic figure. In this short biography, bolstered by letters, sermons, and maps, John Winthrop introduces students to the colonial world, the Pequot Wars, and the history of American Exceptionalism.

Andrzej Franaszek's award-winning biography of Czeslaw Milosz-the great Polish poet and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1980-offers a rich portrait of the writer and his troubled century, providing context for a larger appreciation of his work. This English-language edition, translated by Aleksandra Parker and Michael Parker, contains a new introduction by the translators, along with historical explanations, maps, and a chronology. Franaszek recounts the poet's personal odyssey through the events that convulsed twentieth-century Europe: World War I, the Bolshevik revolution, the Nazi invasion and occupation of Poland, and the Soviet Union's postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. He follows the footsteps of a perpetual outsider who spent much of his unsettled life in Lithuania, Poland, and France, where he sought political asylum. From 1960 to 1999, Milosz lived in the United States before returning to Poland, where he died in 2004. Franaszek traces Milosz's changing, constantly questioning, often skeptical attitude toward organized religion. In the long term, he concluded that faith performed a positive role, not least as an antidote to the amoral, soulless materialism that afflicts contemporary civilization. Despite years of hardship, alienation, and neglect, Milosz retained a belief in the transformative power of poetry, particularly its capacity to serve as a source of moral resistance and a reservoir of collective hope. Seamus Heaney once said that Milosz's poetry is irradiated by wisdom. Milosz reveals how that wisdom was tempered by experience even as the poet retained a childlike wonder in a misbegotten world.

Series Information:
Professional Ethics

Ethical Problems and Genetics Practice provides a rich, case-based account of the ethical issues arising in the genetics clinic and laboratory. By analysing a wide range of evocative and often arresting cases from practice, Michael Parker provides a compelling insight into the complex moral world of the contemporary genetics professional and the challenges they face in the care of patients and their families. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the ethical issues arising in everyday genetics practice. Ethical Problems and Genetics Practice is also a sustained engagement with the relationships between bioethics and social science. In proposing and exemplifying a new approach to bioethics, it makes a significant contribution to debates on methods and interdisciplinarity and will therefore also appeal to all those concerned with theoretical and methodological approaches to bioethics and social science.

In the early 1970s, in Stovall, Texas, seventeen-year-old Earl - a loner, dreamer, lover of music and words - meets Tina, the new girl in town. Tina convinces Earl to drive her to see her mother in Austin, where Earl and Tina are quickly separated. Two days later, Earl is being questioned by the police about Tina's disappearance and the blood in the trunk of his car. But Earl can't remember what happened in Austin, and with little financial support from his working-class family, he is sentenced for a crime he did not commit. Forty years later, Earl is released into a world he can barely navigate. Settling in a small town on the Oregon coast, he attempts to establish a sense of freedom from both bars and razor wire and the emotional toll of incarceration. But just as Earl finds the rhythm he's always sought, his past returns to endanger the new life he's built. Steeped in the music and atmosphere of the 1970s, I Am the Light of This World is a gritty, gripping, and gorgeously written story of loss, redemption, and the power of the imagination, perfect for fans of Ron Rash, Rachel Kushner, and Laird Hunt.

Are we ready for the opportunities and challenges facing the aging church? Now is the time for the church to offer ministry to its increasing numbers of seniors and to benefit from ministry they can offer. In this book James M. Houston and Michael Parker issue an urgent call to reconceive the place and part of the elderly and seniors in the local church congregation. Confronting the idea that the aging are mostly a burden on the church, they boldly address the moral issues related to caring for them, provide examples of successful care-giving programs and challenge the church to restore broken connections across the generations. Cowritten by a noted theologian and an expert in the fields of social work and gerontology, this interdisciplinary book assesses our current cultural context and the challenges and opportunities we face. The authors show us that seniors aren't the problem. They are the solution.

Digital Signal Processing 101: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started provides a basic tutorial on digital signal processing (DSP). Beginning with discussions of numerical representation and complex numbers and exponentials, it goes on to explain difficult concepts such as sampling, aliasing, imaginary numbers, and frequency response. It does so using easy-to-understand examples with minimum mathematics. In addition, there is an overview of the DSP functions and implementation used in several DSP-intensive fields or applications, from error correction to CDMA mobile communication to airborne radar systems. This book has been updated to include the latest developments in Digital Signal Processing, and has eight new chapters on: Automotive Radar Signal Processing Space-Time Adaptive Processing Radar Field Orientated Motor Control Matrix Inversion algorithms GPUs for computing Machine Learning Entropy and Predictive Coding Video compression

"The Committee on Town Happiness" consists of ninety-nine linked stories about disappearing townsfolk. Air balloons are launched to search for the missing, galas proliferate, laws are imposed ad absurdum, and a guerilla group forms as the Committee shapes the future of small-town America in this biting examination of modern bureaucracy.

Alan Michael Parker is the author of two previous novels and seven collections of poems. His awards include three Pushcart Prizes and the 2012 North Carolina Book Award. Professor of English at Davidson College, he also teaches in the Queens University MFA program. He lives in Davidson, North Carolina.

Any device or system with imaging functionality requires a digital video processing solution as part of its embedded system design. Engineers need a practical guide to technology basics and design fundamentals that enables them to deliver the video component of complex projects.

This book introduces core video processing concepts and standards, and delivers practical how-to guidance for engineers embarking on digital video processing designs using FPGAs. It covers the basic topics of video processing in a pictorial, intuitive manner with minimal use of mathematics. Key outcomes and benefits of this book for users include: understanding the concepts and challenges of modern video systems; architect video systems at a system level; reference design examples to implement your own high definition video processing chain; understand implementation trade-offs in video system designs.

Video processing is a must-have skill for engineers working on products and solutions for rapidly growing markets such as video surveillance, video conferencing, medical imaging, military imaging, digital broadcast equipment, displays and countless consumer electronics applications.

This book is for engineers who need to develop video systems in their designs but who do not have video processing experience. It introduces the fundamental video processing concepts and skills in enough detail to get the job done, supported by reference designs, step-by-step FPGA- examples, core standards and systems architecture maps.

Written by lead engineers at Altera Corp, a top-three global developer of digital video chip (FPGA) technology. "

DSP is utilized in just about every electronic system or device. DSP is taking one piece of information be it data, image, video, or audio, most likely compressing, sending, and filtering it to another location within your application to appear in the form of a document, picture or video.

Like Smith before it, this book is different to most on the market by following a popular applied approach to this tricky subject, and will be the perfect starting point for engineers who need to get into DSP from the ground floor. This book starts with the absolute basics of this integral process.

No experience is expected and with no prior knowledge taken for granted, a refresher chapter on complex numbers and trigonometry can be found at the very beginning of the material. Real-world worked examples, reference designs, and tools - including online applets that enable readers to visualize key principles - complete a package that will help engineers who that needs to learn anew or refresh their memory on this essential technology as they move to projects that require DSP familiarity.
Dismayed when presented with a mass of equations as an explanation of DSP? This is the book for you

Clear examples and a non-mathematical approach gets you up to speed with DSP

Includes an overview of the DSP functions and implementation used in typical DSP-intensive applications, including error correction, CDMA mobile communication, and radar systems

Series Information:
Material Cultures

Case Analysis in Clinical Ethics is an eclectic review from a team of leading ethicists covering the main methods for analysing ethical problems in modern medicine. Anneke Lucassen, a clinician, begins by presenting an ethically challenging genetics case drawn from her clinical experience. It is then analysed from different theoretical points of view. Each ethicist takes a particular approach, illustrating it in action and giving the reader a basic grounding in its central elements. Each chapter can be read on its own, but comparison between them gives the reader a sense of how far methodology in medical ethics matters, and how different theoretical starting points can lead to different practical conclusions. At the end, Anneke Lucassen gives a clinician's response to the various ethical methods described. Practising clinical ethicists and students on upper level undergraduate and Master's degree courses in medical ethics and applied philosophy will find this invaluable.

William Trevor: Revaluations offers a comprehensive examination of the oeuvre of one of the most accomplished and celebrated practitioners writing in the English language: the author of fifteen novels, three novellas and eleven volumes of short stories, as well as plays, radio and TV adaptations and film screenplays. Drawing on the talents of a team of distinguished international scholars, this volume shines a critical light on Trevor's core concerns with individuality and the family, and cultural and national identity, extending significantly the scope of current scholarship. Essays scrutinise the author's prolonged concern with domestic, communal and national violence, his interrogation of patterns of inheritance and ideological heritage, and the impact of the past on choices his characters make. William Trevor: Revaluations is a groundbreaking collection of essays, and will also be seen as a definitive introduction to the work of a major contemporary novelist and short-story writer. -- .