Lieutenant Commander David Ashton thrives on excitement. As he strolls to the White House, he has the feeling a new adventure awaits-and he's not disappointed. President Gardiner offers him the mission of a lifetime, something he's trained for all of his life.

Gardiner explains that the United States is running out of oil. In desperation, he is dispatching the Excalibur, the largest starship ever built, to voyage beyond the solar system to a distant planet 103 light years from earth. For the first time in history, the crew exceeds the speed of light in an attempt to find oil and return to earth with their starship filled to the brim.

Though the mission is successful, the load of crude oil is not enough to fill the requirements. David and his crew exceed their assigned mission and use the extra space aboard the ship to create a laboratory to explore the possibilities of travel beyond the speed of light. Their new mission-to create a time machine capable of travel back to the twentieth century in order to change the course of history.

Why do women find work-life balance so hard? Can women "have it all?" Authors Detjen, Waters, and Watson probe these questions and more in The Orange Line - A Woman's Guide to Integrating Career, Family and Life. Through interviews with 118 college-educated women, they document the ongoing work-life struggle and how women hold themselves back with outdated ideals and rigid behavioral rules. The authors provide tools for women to take a new career path that includes work, family, and themselves, and to look inward to claim their power."

England, 1941: With the Luftwaffe raging overhead and deafening explosions all around her, a young, terrified, Spanish Gypsy girl leaps from a window into the night. She is propelled through the bloody, war-torn streets of Plymouth, England, by the Gypsy fire that burns within her soul. Copper Tapestry is the timeless saga of Isabella Juarez, spanning two continents during the years of 1939 to 1973. She is struggling with an obstacle so daunting, that she is forced to make uncharacteristic decisions, manipulating her enemy, mob boss, Angelo DiGrazio. He is "il Capo" with his own agenda, protecting himself, no matter the price. An unfair fight begins with Angelo's network, rules, and cover-ups. Isabella seems destined to live a life of compromise and tragedy. A chain of events unravels the twisted mystery as dark and deadly as the back roads of southern Italy where the last dark secret is revealed, the last tapestry thread is woven. Lives are lost and forever altered. Two very unlikely cultures clash in a stubborn battle of wills. Accurate historical facts blend with conflict and the consequences of decisions made in the face of war and blackmail. Lifelong bonds are woven between people with very different lives, yet all with one common goal.

Louis Cartier (1875–1942), the grandson of Cartier founder Louis-Francois, was an impassioned collector and lover of the arts. He was particularly entranced by Islamic arts, especially Persian book arts, geometric shapes and colour combinations, and its motifs and exotic colour palette are apparent in Cartier jewelry to this day. However, it was his younger brother Jacques – an expert in precious stones – who travelled to India and the Persian Gulf in 1911 and 1912 to discover the culture and bring home the true treasures of the Middle East: natural pearls. This was the pivotal moment when the dialogue between these two worlds opened up, eventually blossoming into a beautiful relationship that has lasted for decades. Published to accompany a major exhibition at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, this lavish book delves into the Cartier archives to trace the story of Louis Cartier’s love of Islamic art and the ways in which he incorporated Islam’s stylized yet abstract motifs into Cartier’s jewelry. Dazzling photographs of Cartier jewelry are accompanied by in-depth texts from a raft of distinguished scholars of both Islam and the decorative arts. With 250 illustrations

* Devoted to the motion of surfaces for which the normal velocity at every point is given by the mean curvature at that point; this geometric heat flow process is called mean curvature flow.

* Mean curvature flow and related geometric evolution equations are important tools in mathematics and mathematical physics.

In this volume authors of academia and practice provide practitioners, scientists and graduate students with a good overview of basic methods and paradigms, as well as important issues and trends across the broad spectrum of parallel and distributed processing. In particular, the book covers fundamental topics such as efficient parallel algorithms, languages for parallel processing, parallel operating systems, architecture of parallel and distributed systems, management of resources, tools for parallel computing, parallel database systems and multimedia object servers, and networking aspects of distributed and parallel computing. Three chapters are dedicated to applications: parallel and distributed scientific computing, high-performance computing in molecular sciences, and multimedia applications for parallel and distributed systems. Summing up, the Handbook is indispensable for academics and professionals who are interested in learning the leading expert`s view of the topic.

This book provides a theoretical and application oriented analysis of deterministic scheduling problems arising in computer and manufacturing environments. In such systems processors (machines) and possibly other resources are to be allocated among tasks in such a way that certain scheduling objectives are met. Various scheduling problems are discussed where different problem parameters such as task processing times, urgency weights, arrival times, deadlines, precedence constraints, and processor speed factor are involved. Polynomial and exponential time optimization algorithms as well as approximation and heuristic approaches (including tabu search, simulated annealing, genetic algorithms, and ejection chains) are presented and discussed. Moreover, resource-constrained, imprecise computation, flexible flow shop and dynamic job shop scheduling, as well as flexible manufacturing systems, are considered.

This book is the only psychotherapy text that: * maps out a core process of profound unlearning, confirmed in neuroscience research, that is shared across all types of psychotherapy that produce transformational change, for a remarkable unification of the panoply of therapy systems * guides each therapist's use of her or his preferred techniques for more consistently achieving transformational change-the complete, permanent elimination of symptoms and their underlying emotional schemas and mental models * provides two dozen detailed case examples showing that the core process is effective for a vast range of the severe, longstanding problems and symptoms presented by therapy seekers, including complex trauma, depression, panic attacks, shame, insecure attachment, compulsive behaviors, and many others

Identifies and analyzes thematizations of women and death from the past five centuries, illuminating the present and recent past. The theme of women and death is pervasive in the German culture of the past five centuries. With the conviction that only an interdisciplinary approach can explore a typology as far-reaching and significant as this, and in accordance with the feminist tenet that images are accountable for norms, this volume investigates how iconic representations of women and death came about and why they endure. Traditionally, representations of women as agents of death -- when they have been considered at all -- have been considered separately from women as victims, as though there was no shared thematic ground. Here, familiar depictions of female victims are examined alongside the more unsettling spectacle of women as killers, exposing cultural assumptions. Essays explore, among others, the themes of virgin sacrifice and female infanticides, "Death and the Maiden" in art, female vampires in literature, and women killersin the media. Others compare cultural practices such as female mourning across historical contexts, examining change and the reasons for it. The authors' judgments eschew the simplistic and programmatic, contributing not just to current research in German literature, but also to understanding of cultural history in general. Contributors: Stephanie Knoell, Ruth B. Bottigheimer, Anna Linton, Bettina Bildhauer, Mary Lindemann, Helen Fronius, Anna Richards, Jurgen Barkhoff, Lawrence Kramer, Kathrin Hoffmann-Curtius, Clare Bielby, Gisela Ecker. Anna Linton is Lecturer in German at Kings College London, and Helen Fronius is an AHRC Research Fellow and College Lecturer at Exeter College Oxford.

Satisfying, secure connection with others depends heavily on how well we listen to each other and respond to what we've heard. The Listening Book lays bare the key elements of both deeply attuned and badly misattuned listening in vivid scenes of real-life interactions that capture the emotional impact and give the reader an illuminating "aha" experience. Added to that is a mind-opening account of psychological processes and principles that normally operate from outside of awareness, showing how skillful listening can reveal those dynamics. Beyond even that, such listening can produce interactions that unlock lifelong emotional conditioning to yield liberating change through one of the brain's most remarkable processes, which neuroscientists call memory reconsolidation. Whether read solo, with a partner, or in a reading group, The Listening Book is for everyone who yearns for deeper emotional connection and closeness, everyone who is at a loss to understand what is interfering, and everyone who is fascinated by the subtle and manifold factors involved in interpersonal communication.

This book provides a theoretical and application-oriented analysis of deterministic scheduling problems in advanced planning and computer systems. The text examines scheduling problems across a range of parameters: job priority, release times, due dates, processing times, precedence constraints, resource usage and more, focusing on such topics as computer systems and supply chain management. Discussion includes single and parallel processors, flexible shops and manufacturing systems, and resource-constrained project scheduling. Many applications from industry and service operations management and case studies are described. The handbook will be useful to a broad audience, from researchers to practitioners, graduate and advanced undergraduate students.