The study of institutions, a core concept in comparative politics, has produced many rich and influential theories on the economic and political effects of institutions, yet it has been less successful at theorizing their origins. In Fixing Democracy, Javier Corrales develops a theory of institutional origins that concentrates on constitutions and levels of power within them. He reviews numerous Latin American constituent assemblies and constitutional amendments to explore why some democracies expand rather than restrict presidential powers and why this heightened presidentialism discourages democracy. His signal theoretical contribution is his elaboration on power asymmetries. Corrales determines that conditions of reduced power asymmetry make constituent assemblies more likely to curtail presidential powers, while weaker opposition and heightened power asymmetry is an indicator that presidential powers will expand. The bargain-based theory that he uses focuses on power distribution and provides a more accurate variable in predicting actual constitutional outcomes than other approaches based on functionalism or ideology. While the empirical focus is Latin America, Fixing Democracy contributes a broadly applicable theory to the scholarship both institutions and democracy.

There is a broad consensus amongst law firms and in-house legal departments that next generation "Legal Tech" - particularly in the form of Blockchain-based technologies and Smart Contracts - will have a profound impact on the future operations of all legal service providers. Legal Tech startups are already revolutionizing the legal industry by increasing the speed and efficiency of traditional legal services or replacing them altogether with new technologies. This on-going process of disruption within the legal profession offers significant opportunities for all business. However, it also poses a number of challenges for practitioners, trade associations, technology vendors, and regulators who often struggle to keep up with the technologies, resulting in a widening regulatory "gap." Many uncertainties remain regarding the scope, direction, and effects of these new technologies and their integration with existing practices and legacy systems. Adding to the challenges is the growing need for easy-to-use contracting solutions, on the one hand, and for protecting the users of such solutions, on the other. To respond to the challenges and to provide better legal communications, systems, and services Legal Tech scholars and practitioners have found allies in the emerging field of Legal Design. This collection brings together leading scholars and practitioners working on these issues from diverse jurisdictions. The aim is to introduce Blockchain and Smart Contract technologies, and to examine their on-going impact on the legal profession, business and regulators.

The production of wastewater from various human and industrial activities has a harsh impact on the environment. Without adequate treatment, the disposal of this wastewater poses a threat to the quality of water globally. Technologies for the Treatment and Recovery of Nutrients from Industrial Wastewater investigates emergent research and best practices within the field of wastewater management. Highlighting novel technological tools in wastewater treatment, effective nutrient removal technologies, and innovative solutions to quality water preservation practices, this book is a critical reference source for professionals, scientists, academics, and students.

Lucifer tells tales of his times and talks with his brothers, Michael the Archangel, and Jesus Christ. Over the eons, they have met upon the surface of earth and also in his throne room below. Lucifer (Lucy, as he is called by his brethren and even his big kahuna, GOD . . . He really, really hates it.) relates some of his recollections of things told to him and those that he himself experienced while spending time with Mike and JC. In doing so, his understanding of humans caused him to like them and respect their difficult walk through time. This did not, of course, in any way change his God assigned, none union, job with mortals. He goes on to tell of an evolutionary occurrence that resulted in the birth of an extraordinary being that earned his respect and admiration.

En una forma particular de observar la vida, de apreciar a las personas y sus cualidades; en momentos especiales de inspiraci n; han surgido estos bellos poemas y pensamientos, que nos dan una visi n de la riqueza humana con que el Creador nos ha dotado, cualidades que est n en todas las personas y que pueden ser estimuladas a trav?'s de las palabras, del amor y del enfoque en lo positivo que cada ser humano tiene. Estos poemas te inspiraran para ver a los tuyos y aquellos con los que tratas desde una nueva perspectiva encontrando lo bueno de cada persona que est a tu lado, llenando tu vida de amor gozo y paz.

Fiction Crown of the Nazarene: A Carmela Buenasuerte Case Jesse Edward Corralez Pre-publication The Crown is the third installment in the Carmela Buenasuerte mystery series by Jesse Edward Corralez. In this book, Carmela and friends are called on to find an ancient relic the Vatican wishes to preserve for all of humankind regardless of religious affiliation. But the item's elusiveness suggests that its purpose does not include being housed in a museum. Archbishop Nicolas Rand, head of the Holy Antiquities Museum, is called on by the pope to authenticate a relic that is believed to be the crown of thorns that was worn by Jesus Christ during his crucifixion. The archbishop is given the directive to go to a museum in Switzerland and negotiate the purchase of the crown from the curator if he determines that it is the real thing. Money is no obstacle. Once in Switzerland, the archbishop is shown pictures of the thorny wreath that a former visitor to the Switzerland museum sent to the curator. The archbishop and the curator travel to Portland, Oregon, to authenticate the wreath. When they arrive, they are informed that the wreath was taken during a robbery of the owner's condo. Enter Carmela Buenasuerte, the crack private investigator who solved the curbside recycling and warehouse robbery mysteries. When her husband, police officer Shawn Sparrow, takes on the case of the stolen wreath with few results, Carmela's services are retained. As the couple begins to acquire bits of information about the location of the wreath, first at a pawnshop and then across the country in New York City, they recruit their friends Abraham Joseph Dooley and Gideon Nathan Blaze, owners of a special security and transport business, to help with the search. The jaunt to New York to recover the wreath from a couple who'd been visiting Portland leads the group all over the globe including Italy, Israel, Syria, and Iraq. With each attempt to retrieve the wreath, the foursome encounters people who have experienced a miracle after coming in contact with the crown: a child blind from birth can suddenly see and recognize her surroundings; a woman disfigured and crippled in a car accident as a child becomes beautiful and all her physical deformities are corrected; and a man who was positive for AIDS shows absolutely no signs of the disease after coming in contact with the wreath. Corralez achieves in this book what he does best as a writer: the combination of action with a focus on human behavior-the good and the bad-to weave a tale that not only entertains, but feeds the spirit. While the search for the crown of thorns is endless, one can determine that the wreath is not supposed to be found and possessed by one person or institution. The crown appears to belong to everyone, and as a result, it should be free to circulate among the masses. Crown of the Nazarene is a strong addition to the Carmela Buenasuerte series. I highly recommend it. Melissa Levine for Independent Professional Book Reviewers www.bookreviewers.org

The application of auto-repeat facilities in telephone systems, as well as the use of random access protocols in computer networks, have led to growing interest in retrial queueing models. Since much of the theory of retrial queues is complex from an analytical viewpoint, with this book the authors give a comprehensive and updated text focusing on approximate techniques and algorithmic methods for solving the analytically intractable models.

Retrial Queueing Systems: A Computational Approach also

• Presents motivating examples in telephone and computer networks.
• Establishes a comparative analysis of the retrial queues versus standard queues with waiting lines and queues with losses.
• Integrates a wide range of techniques applied to the main M/G/1 and M/M/c retrial queues, and variants with general retrial times, finite population and the discrete-time case.
• Surveys basic results of the matrix-analytic formalism and emphasizes the related tools employed in retrial queues.
• Discusses a few selected retrial queues with QBD, GI/M/1 and M/G/1 structures.
• Features an abundance of numerical examples, and updates the existing literature.

The book is intended for an audience ranging from advanced undergraduates to researchers interested not only in queueing theory, but also in applied probability, stochastic models of the operations research, and engineering. The prerequisite is a graduate course in stochastic processes, and a positive attitude to the algorithmic probability.

This book reports on cutting-edge digital technologies and their applications in physical activity and sport. Gathering selected chapters from the 1st International Conference on Technology in Physical Activity and Sport, held virtually on November 24-27, 2020, from Seville, Spain, it offers a practice-oriented and evidence-based perspective on how technologies can be used for evaluation and control of different parameter relating to sport, physical activity, and health. It covers how digital technologies can be applied for training and monitoring purposes, and for improving athlete's performance, how they influence sport habits in different populations, demonstrating their growing influence in sport businesses (such as fitness centers) and management, and provides new findings on the connection between physical activity and human health, suggesting some interesting directions for future studies. With a good balance of laboratory research and information relevant for professional trainers, this book will provide bioengineers, sport scientists, and physiotherapists with timely information and a multidisciplinary perspective on the use of digital technologies to improve fitness, wellbeing and health in different population groups.

Artificial intelligence and related technologies are changing both the law and the legal profession. In particular, technological advances in fields ranging from machine learning to more advanced robots, including sensors, virtual realities, algorithms, bots, drones, self-driving cars, and more sophisticated "human-like" robots are creating new and previously unimagined challenges for regulators. These advances also give rise to new opportunities for legal professionals to make efficiency gains in the delivery of legal services. With the exponential growth of such technologies, radical disruption seems likely to accelerate in the near future. This collection brings together a series of contributions by leading scholars in the newly emerging field of artificial intelligence, robotics, and the law. The aim of the book is to enrich legal debates on the social meaning and impact of this type of technology. The distinctive feature of the contributions presented in this edition is that they address the impact of these technological developments in a number of different fields of law and from the perspective of diverse jurisdictions. Moreover, the authors utilize insights from multiple related disciplines, in particular social theory and philosophy, in order to better understand and address the legal challenges created by AI. Therefore, the book will contribute to interdisciplinary debates on disruptive new AI technologies and the law.

This unique volume brings together findings from six separate but interconnected studies, carried out over seven years in the same small bilingual elementary school. During a period of rapid gentrification in Austin, Texas, Hillside Elementary transformed from a predominantly Latinx, under-resourced and under-enrolled neighborhood school with a transitional bilingual program to a two-way dual language bilingual education (TWBE) school with a waiting list of middle-class families from across the school district. Chapter authors entered the context as researchers at various points along the timeline, with varied theoretical lenses, research questions, and methodological approaches. Most authors have also been parents or teachers at the school, and all were deeply invested in the school community and the education of bilingual students. They come together to argue that in order for a TWBE school to serve marginalized bilingual and BIPOC children and families, it must work collectively toward critical consciousness. Educators, parents, and students must learn to center the cultural, linguistic and racial/ethnic identities of marginalized families, and engage in ongoing dialogue at every level. The culminating product is a theme with variations: one context, one phenomenon, multiple varied positionalities and perspectives.

A great deal has changed in four decades in terms of English language teaching (ELT) in Colombia, which puts this book, in many ways, at the interface of where ELT in Colombia was, where it is now, and where it could be headed in the immediate future. One of the current educational challenges facing Colombia is the fact that the 2013 report of the Program for International Student Assessment, known as PISA, showed that Colombia placed number 62 out of the 65 countries in which students took the PISA tests. Another challenge, as the authors explain that the university within which their language teaching organization operates is: "a private, non-profit institution that receives no governmental funding. Its resources derive from student tuition, research, and consulting projects, and all of its profits are reinvested into the infrastructure of the university and scholarships for students." This is an important point, as one of the goals of this English In Context series is to showcase some language teaching organizations that are nonprofit and that do not have the geographic, economic, and political advantages of being in the capital of the country.