On a dark night in February of 1864, the H.L. Hunley, the first submarine to sink an enemy ship in combat, torpedoed the Union blockade ship USS Housatonic, a feat that would not be repeated for another 50 years. But fate was not kind to the Hunley that night as it sank with all of its crew on board before it could return to shore. Considered by many to be the Civil War's greatest mystery, the Hunley's demise and its resting place have been a topic of discussion for historians and Civil War buffs alike for more than a hundred years. Adding still more to the intrigue, the vessel was discovered in 1995 by a dive team led by famed novelist and shipwreck hunter Clive Cussler, sparking an underwater investigation that resulted in the raising of the Hunley on August 8, 2000. Since that time, the extensive research and restorative efforts underway have unraveled the incredible secrets that were locked within the submarine at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Join Civil War expert Brian Hicks as Sea of Darkness recounts the most historically accurate narrative of the sinking and eventual recovery ever written. Hicks has been given unprecedented access to all the main characters involved in the discovery, raising, and restoration of the Hunley. Complete with a foreword and additional commentary by Clive Cussler, Sea of Darkness offers new, never-before-published evidence on the cause of the Hunley's sinking, providing readers a tantalizing behind-the-scenes look inside the historic submarine.

High-contrast astronomical imaging has progressed significantly in the past decade. Many of these techniques have been laboratory demonstrated to perform at contrast levels adequate for the detection of Solar System-like planets and dust around nearby stars. None of them, however, have been demonstrated in space. The state of the art in high-contrast imaging systems that have been built for space-based observation, the environment best suited for spectroscopic study of exo-Earths, is the nulling interferometer that was flown on the Planetary Imaging Concept Testbed Using a Rocket Experiment (PICTURE). The PICTURE nulling interferometer, built from multiple optical elements, relies on the incorporation of additional dispersive components in order to deliver the broadband performance preferred for faint object imaging. These elements add to the cost, complexity, and misalignment risk of the instrument. The Monolithic Achromatic Nulling Interference Coronagraph (MANIC) Brian Hicks describe in this thesis the first optic of its kind. He has taken the multiple optical element concept described in earlier works from theory to a flyable monolithic optic. Brian has advanced the state of the art in nulling interferometers by improving optical stability and robustness. Following application of the fabrication method described in this work, the design of MANIC also allows for broader band performance at higher contrast than that achieved with the PICTURE nulling interferometer.

High-contrast astronomical imaging has progressed significantly in the past decade. Many of these techniques have been laboratory demonstrated to perform at contrast levels adequate for the detection of Solar System-like planets and dust around nearby stars. None of them, however, have been demonstrated in space. The state of the art in high-contrast imaging systems that have been built for space-based observation, the environment best suited for spectroscopic study of exo-Earths, is the nulling interferometer that was flown on the Planetary Imaging Concept Testbed Using a Rocket Experiment (PICTURE). The PICTURE nulling interferometer, built from multiple optical elements, relies on the incorporation of additional dispersive components in order to deliver the broadband performance preferred for faint object imaging. These elements add to the cost, complexity, and misalignment risk of the instrument.
The Monolithic Achromatic Nulling Interference Coronagraph (MANIC) Brian Hicks describe in this thesis the first optic of its kind. He has taken the multiple optical element concept described in earlier works from theory to a flyable monolithic optic. Brian has advanced the state of the art in nulling interferometers by improving optical stability and robustness. Following application of the fabrication method described in this work, the design of MANIC also allows for broader band performance at higher contrast than that achieved with the PICTURE nulling interferometer.

Richly detailed and well-researched, this heartbreaking history unfolds like a political thriller with a deeply human side.--Publishers Weekly
Toward the Setting Sun chronicles one of the most significant but least explored periods in American history, recounting the unknown story of the first white man to champion the voiceless Native American cause.
Son of a Scottish trader and a quarter-Cherokee woman, John Ross was educated in white schools. It was not until he was twenty-two, when he fought alongside his people against the Creek Indians, a neighboring rebel tribe, that he knew the Cherokees' fate would be his. Cherokee chief for forty years, he would guide the tribe through, its most turbulent period.
As increasing numbers of whites settled illegally on the Cherokee Nation's native land, including Ross's beloved home at Head of Coosa, the chief remained steadfast in his refusal to sign a treaty agreeing to removal. When a group of renegade Cherokees betrayed him and negotiated an agreement with Jackson's men behind Ross's back, he was forced to give way and begin the journey west.
In one of America's great tragedies, thousands of Cherokees died during the tribe's migration on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma.

Thirty-four-year-old Michael Turner calls his life "a swing and a miss." His wife's uncle got him his job. His wife's grandmother got him his house. He travels too much, and his kids are growing up without him. He dreams of creating a new world for his family, but has no idea how to do it. When his wife, Julie, discovers a family secret with the power to alter their lives forever, Michael is forced to confront the one truth he's been avoiding all his life: Sometimes the only way to redirect your future is to reconnect with your past. Whether you're a salesperson, an athlete, a homemaker or an entrepreneur, this modern-day parable will show you that living your dreams isn't some secret, mystical process, and will inspire you to create an astounding new world for yourself and your family. A unique blend of fiction, allegory and inspiration, The Tinderbox Tapes is the debut offering from Speaker Brian Hicks.

Many countries are dependent upon capital flows for their balance of payments accounts. While the determinants of foreign direct investment and portfolio investment have been extensively explored, the analyses of remittance flows from host to home countries are largely lacking. Factors predominantly not considered are domestic institutions which support or encourage international remittance exchange. Nations desire to control international immigration and capital movement. Consequently they adopt domestic policies which create institutions that manage both capital and labor mobility across borders. Additionally, researchers commonly neglect to consider the impact of both supply & demand factors simultaneously, or in other words, the domestic condition (home and host) which both push and pull migrants to migrate and remit. Further, given the non-dyadic nature of the data, there arises a need to 'regionalize' the data. Controlling for existing explanations and regional influences. I find that domestic institutions have a significant impact on the ability of an individual to migrate to a host country and to eventually remit back to their country of origin.

During the dark days of the Great Depression, thousands of weary souls escaped their bleak lives for a week of paradise aboard the Ward Line's glamorous cruise ship, the Morro Castle. It was the most famous passenger liner of its day, lightning fast, elegantly appointed. It was also a ticking time bomb. It was the summer of 1934. Two sailors joined the Morro Castle crew, one a teenager on his first job away from home, the other a dangerous psychopath. Within two months, they would witness the end of the party in a single night of death, killer storms, and catastrophic fire. And that was only the beginning of a twenty-year-long story. In When the Dancing Stopped, we too walk up the gangplank to that art-deco liner and, at first, enjoy the glamour and the sultry Havana nights. With mounting suspense, we also witness the launch of a mystery that mesmerized the nation and then, in the midst of troubled times, faded away. Award-winning author Brian Hicks, using newly declassified FBI files, thousands of pages of investigation notes, testimony, and new interviews, takes the reader on a mid-century cruise through history, revealing a cold-case file that had been, until now, left unsolved for history. And, as he relates in this work of masterful storytelling, it all began with the last cruise of the Morro Castle. One of those two men, Thomas Torresson Jr., first sailed on the cruise ship as a high school senior recovering from serious illness and soon found a love that would endure his entire life. Within months, he would join the crew. For George Rogers, a gifted radio operator with a secret past, the ship was merely the latest in a long line of jobs. Their paths would cross several times on the way to their destiny, and the disaster would affect the two in very different ways: one would become famous, the other scarred forever. In the grand tradition of The Devil in the White City, Hicks details a desperate investigation and the search for what may be the modern era's first serial killer through the tragic backdrop of a country suffering through depression and a buildup to war. With cameos by J. Edgar Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Ernest Hemingway, When the Dancing Stopped is the captivating true story of two men irrevocably bound by history -- a true American hero and a dangerous killer masquerading as one. More than that, there is the larger cast of characters: crew members and passengers, investigators, scoundrels, and, yes, additional victims. For the story that began on that storm-tossed night off the coast of New Jersey continued, as we now learn, for decades to come.

Do variations in institutional design influence the inward flows of foreign direct investment (FDI)? The application of distinctions in the creation of organizations to FDI has been limited. Variations in RTA economic scope and independence gives foreign investors comparable signals as to the extent to which developing governments will apply liberal economic reforms as well as the ability of external agencies to enforce these reforms and protect investments. Conversely, stringent and strongly independent RTAs may actually prove to be inhibiting to foreign investment in developed countries by restricting the previously successful economic actions. I apply a data set of FDI inflows for both developing and developed nations from 1970 to 2003. Controlling for alternative explanations and concerns of endogeneity, I find that elevated levels of both RTA economic scope and independence produce superior inflows of FDI into developing nations, while more independent RTAs actually reduce inward FDI movement into developed nations. This book is addressed to professionals in political science and toward research in the sub-fields of international organization.