This book bridges the gap between risk assessment and fire safety engineering like few other resources. As all required knowledge for Probability and Statistics for Fire Engineering is included in the preliminary chapters, the book is suitable for teaching Fire Engineering components in a wide range of engineering courses for senior graduates and for postgraduate students of Fire Engineering. It will also serve as a comprehensive reference for professionals. This book describes the theory and the models involved in risk analysis, and includes case studies of multiple fire scenarios. Building fire safety and human behavioural responses to these scenarios show the benefits of risk-based fire safety design. It offers huge international appeal with case studies and examples from across the world. It applies probabilistic and stochastic models to fire initiation, fire growth, smoke spread and human behaviour.

Ambitious programs of education reform have been introduced by many governments around the world. Reforming Education is an important study of large-scale education reform in five different settings: England, New Zealand, the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Manitoba and the US state of Minnesota. The book looks at a variety of reforms covering: school choice; charter schools; increased testing of students; stricter curriculum guidelines; and local school management.
Drawing from theoretical and empirical work in education, political theory, organizational theory and public administration, Reforming Education provides a clearly developed conceptual framework of analysing reform programs. The author reviews the political origins of the reforms, the process of adoption into law, the implementation processes used to support the reforms and the results of the reforms for students, schools and communities.

Ambitious programs of education reform have been introduced by many governments around the world. Reforming Education is an important study of large-scale education reform in five different settings: England, New Zealand, the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Manitoba and the US state of Minnesota. The book looks at a variety of reforms covering: school choice; charter schools; increased testing of students; stricter curriculum guidelines; and local school management.
Drawing from theoretical and empirical work in education, political theory, organizational theory and public administration, Reforming Education provides a clearly developed conceptual framework of analysing reform programs. The author reviews the political origins of the reforms, the process of adoption into law, the implementation processes used to support the reforms and the results of the reforms for students, schools and communities.

Suggestions are constantly being made, both in the popular media and academic literature, about the kinds of changes schools should make. The research in this text shows that schools are primarily inward-looking organizations, and would benefit from better ways of understanding the changes surrounding them and the pressures on them. This text offers theoretical discussion of the ideas around the topic and a set of suggestions for thinking about them.

Suggestions are constantly being made, both in the popular media and academic literature, about the kinds of changes schools should make. The research in this text shows that schools are primarily inward-looking organizations, and would benefit from better ways of understanding the changes surrounding them and the pressures on them. This text offers theoretical discussion of the ideas around the topic and a set of suggestions for thinking about them.

What can be done to improve the educational experiences of students who live in cities with increasingly high levels of diversity and inequality? Making a Difference in Urban Schools evaluates how school and community leaders have worked to change urban education in Canada for the better over the past fifty years.

This analytic and comparative study traces the evolution of urban education in Toronto and Winnipeg from the 1960s onward. Jane Gaskell and Ben Levin identify important contrasts between the experiences in each city as a result of their different demographics, institutional structures, cultures, and politics. They also highlight the common issues and dilemmas faced by reformers in these two cities, across Canada, and globally - including many that persist and remain controversial to this day.

High levels of cynicism about politics, fuelled by a lack of understanding of the real dynamics of policy and the political process, are dangerous to democracy. So argues Benjamin Levin in "Governing Education." With this book, Levin seeks to improve public understanding of the way government works, especially with regard to education policy.

Based on his experience as Manitoba's deputy minister of education from 1999 to 2002, Levin offers an insider's account of the events and conditions that governed Manitoba's educational policy as a way of illustrating the larger dynamics of the political process. He demonstrates how the actions of governments are rooted in diverse political demands, and looking at the current state of education and education policy in Canada, comments on its strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities.

Levin's unique combination of informed analysis with real stories of real events told by participants provides an incisive exploration of government in action. While based on events in Manitoba, the same dynamics and conditions apply across the country. This book will have strong appeal to people in education, political science, and public administration.

What can be done to improve the educational experiences of students who live in cities with increasingly high levels of diversity and inequality? Making a Difference in Urban Schools evaluates how school and community leaders have worked to change urban education in Canada for the better over the past fifty years.

This analytic and comparative study traces the evolution of urban education in Toronto and Winnipeg from the 1960s onward. Jane Gaskell and Ben Levin identify important contrasts between the experiences in each city as a result of their different demographics, institutional structures, cultures, and politics. They also highlight the common issues and dilemmas faced by reformers in these two cities, across Canada, and globally - including many that persist and remain controversial to this day.

In the early 17th century, Russia went through a foreign invasion and the nation's first civil war - a time so horrible that it acquired its own name in Russian history: "The Times of Troubles." Internal and external forces came together to create a storm of such magnitude that it threatened the very existence of the nation. The country lay in ruins and a foreign army occupied Moscow. For a while it seemed that Russia would never become an independent nation again, but the Russian people found enough strength and courage to stop the civil war and unite against foreign invaders.

Two young people played a most important role in these events - a pretender to the Russian throne who called himself Tsarevich Dmitry, son of the late Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible, and Marina Mnishek, the girl with whom he fell in love while on the run from then Russian Tsar, Boris Godunov. Dmitry invaded Russia with a small band of adventurers and defeated Godunov. He and Marina were married and crowned in the Kremlin. Two weeks after their marriage, Dmitry was killed in a riot and Marina was exiled to the far North. But she escaped, and took part in a civil war herself. Twice she came to the walls of Moscow with an army and two different men by her side, fighting for her crown.

This is a true story how a young man of uncertain ancestry and a young woman from a family of Polish nobility forced history to engrave their names into the list of Tsar's families of Russia. In their adventures, fights, travels, love stories, and turns of fate throwing them into the depths of despair and raising them to the heights of power and wealth, this couple lived more exciting lives than millions of other human beings put together.