A group of fun-loving scuba divers called the Sea Dogs find themselves hoodwinked when their biannual dive trip to the Florida Keys is rearranged on an innocent pretense. Their friend Ray Stellar has just inherited a spectacular island off Key Largo, and asks the dive team if they'd rather vacation on his island instead of their normal destination. Eager to save money, the team accepts the free trip. When they arrive on the island, the divers find themselves up to their necks in dirty deeds. To settle his mounting debts, Ray's boss has made a deal with a drug kingpin; and the Sea Dogs unknowingly become involved in the arrangement. The DEA soon shows up, and the Sea Dogs are stalked, used as pawns, and almost get their ship blown up. But their happy-go-lucky attitude and positive perspective see them through, and they manage to thwart the drug kingpin. Just when they thought the bad times were behind them, they stumble onto the lost treasure of Black Beard the pirate. Kidnappings, Black Beard's ghost, and hilarious mishaps plague the Sea Dogs at every turn. Will the Sea Dogs ever find peace and quiet in their lives again, or will their trip be the vacation to end all vacations?

This book develops a coherent and quite general theoretical approach to algorithm design for iterative learning control based on the use of operator representations and quadratic optimization concepts including the related ideas of inverse model control and gradient-based design. Using detailed examples taken from linear, discrete and continuous-time systems, the author gives the reader access to theories based on either signal or parameter optimization. Although the two approaches are shown to be related in a formal mathematical sense, the text presents them separately as their relevant algorithm design issues are distinct and give rise to different performance capabilities. Together with algorithm design, the text demonstrates the underlying robustness of the paradigm and also includes new control laws that are capable of incorporating input and output constraints, enable the algorithm to reconfigure systematically in order to meet the requirements of different reference and auxiliary signals and also to support new properties such as spectral annihilation. Iterative Learning Control will interest academics and graduate students working in control who will find it a useful reference to the current status of a powerful and increasingly popular method of control. The depth of background theory and links to practical systems will be of use to engineers responsible for precision repetitive processes.

Well the Florida based dive team the Sea Dogs find themselves deep in it again. After a month long venture in the Mediterranean Sea looking for the Lost City of Atlantis. They decide, hey! Why not build it themselves. It started out pretty easily, but like always, their plans become someone else's. They stumble onto a blue hole that has never been charted. In it they find a shipwreck from WWII, along with a nuclear weapon which never made it to the European Theater of Operation. Their plan to rebuild "The Lost City of Atlantis" are put on hold once again, when they find them caught up in counterfeit money scheme, a lost treasure, the Ghost of Black Beard the Pirate, the FBI's most wanted list, and having to hide in the Governor's Mansion, and that's when things were going well.

So get your scuba gear ready and dive into another crazy adventure with those zany Sea Dogs. It's an Adventure you can't put down weather you want to or not.

Analyzing a wide body of cultural texts, including literature, film, and other visual arts, Gender, Empire, and Postcolony: Luso-Afro-Brazilian Intersections is a diverse collection of essays on gender in Portuguese colonialism and Lusophone postcolonialism.

During the American Civil War, Washington, D.C. was the most heavily fortified city in North America. As President Abraham Lincoln's Capital, the city became the symbol of Union determination, as well as a target for Robert E. Lee's Confederates. As a Union army and navy logistical base, it contained a complex of hospitals, storehouses, equipment repair facilities, and animal corrals. These were in addition to other public buildings, small urban areas, and vast open space that constituted the capital on the Potomac. To protect Washington with all it contained and symbolized, the Army constructed a shield of fortifications: 68 enclosed earthen forts, 93 supplemental batteries, miles of military roads, and support structures for commissary, quartermaster, engineer, and civilian labor force, some of which still exist today. Thousands of troops were held back from active operations to garrison this complex. And the Commanders of the Army of the Potomac from Irvin McDowell to George Meade, and informally U.S. Grant himself, always had to keep in mind their responsibility of protecting this city, at the same time that they were moving against the Confederate forces arrayed against them. Revised in style, format, and content, the new edition of Mr. Lincoln's Forts is the premier historical reference and tour guide to the Civil War defenses of Washington, D.C.

This book examines key twentieth-century philosophers, theologians, and social scientists who began their careers with commitments to the political left only later to reappraise or reject them. Their reevaluation of their own previous positions reveals not only the change in their own thought but also the societal changes in the culture, economics, and politics to which they were reacting. By exploring the evolution of the political thought of these philosophers, this book draws connections among these thinkers and schools and discovers the general trajectory of twentieth-century political thinking in the West.

Willmoore Kendall was a man against the world, a "maverick," an "iconoclast." His thoughts were profound, his countless enemies powerful, his personal life full of drama. Heaven Can Indeed Fall is the first full-length biography of Kendall and integrates the man with the teacher, thinker, and cold warrior. Once a Marxist, Kendall became a fearsome foe of global communism. He never apologized for supporting Joseph McCarthy. As the co-founder of National Review he helped turn the word liberal into an insult. A "stormy petrel," Kendall was a man "who never lost an argument or kept a friend." Yet he was one of the most effective and sensitive teachers of his age. His ideas shaped Cold War practices of intelligence analysis and psychological warfare. As an academic he became the premier American theorist for conservative populism. The recent reemergence of populist ideas among American conservatives makes understanding Kendall ever more imperative. This book shows how a child prodigy and bucolic boy scout became an ambitious intelligence analyst, razor-tongued polemicist and profound student of American politics. By knowing Kendall one can better understand Cold War America, and contemporary America as well.

Rogue State chronicles how West Virginia entered-and remains-in the Union under unconstitutional circumstances. Its severance from Virginia and reincorporation as a new state in 1863 occurred outside the bounds of constitutional legality. The United States government, while pledged to prevent the secession of eleven states from the Union, nevertheless condoned, abetted, supported, and ultimately affirmed secession of fifty counties without permission from Virginia. This unprecedented and unconstitutional process marks the only time in American history that a state was created and admitted to the Union outside the boundaries of the prescribed constitutional process. Lincoln's attorney general even declared the process unconstitutional. Though secession was not permitted for states or parts of states by the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. government produced a facade of legality and constitutionality in 1863 to justify the secession of a part of one state to form another.

The Neutrality Imperative examines the policy of neutrality that was used as an effective guiding principle in American foreign policy. Because it was such a strong and valid principle in U.S. foreign policy until WWII, it can be called "the neutrality imperative." For much of American history, neutrality was more than a preference; it was a foreign policy imperative. George Washington's policy of neutrality provided security through peace. In the 21st century, "the neutrality imperative" is a valid option to achieve peace, stability, and security. In The Neutrality Imperative, author Richard H. Owens draws observations and conclusions about U.S. foreign policy from Washington to Bush and cites implications for future international conduct. This book assists in understanding the 'what and why' of foreign affairs, and offers a blueprint for understanding and guiding future U.S. foreign policy decisions.

If you are fed-up with the rot that is consuming most organizations and you want to find a truly inspirational way of developing yourself (or those within your organization) In Search of Leaders will help you escape. If you freeze water it becomes ice. Yet, when melting it reverts to water. This is change. If you burn a stick of wood, it becomes ashes. It can never become wood again. This is transformation. Learn how to transform yourself, rather than simply change. Follow the journey on which Hilarie Owen takes you, a journey that will allow you to discover your potential as a great leader in your own sphere of ambition and beyond. ‘Illustrates brilliantly the importance of understanding the human essence of leadership.’ Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business Administration, University of Southern California and Visiting Professor of Leadership, University of Exeter. Author of On Becoming a Leader and Organizing Genius.

This book develops a coherent and quite general theoretical approach to algorithm design for iterative learning control based on the use of operator representations and quadratic optimization concepts including the related ideas of inverse model control and gradient-based design. Using detailed examples taken from linear, discrete and continuous-time systems, the author gives the reader access to theories based on either signal or parameter optimization. Although the two approaches are shown to be related in a formal mathematical sense, the text presents them separately as their relevant algorithm design issues are distinct and give rise to different performance capabilities. Together with algorithm design, the text demonstrates the underlying robustness of the paradigm and also includes new control laws that are capable of incorporating input and output constraints, enable the algorithm to reconfigure systematically in order to meet the requirements of different reference and auxiliary signals and also to support new properties such as spectral annihilation. Iterative Learning Control will interest academics and graduate students working in control who will find it a useful reference to the current status of a powerful and increasingly popular method of control. The depth of background theory and links to practical systems will be of use to engineers responsible for precision repetitive processes.

Analyzing a wide body of cultural texts, including literature, film, and other visual arts, Gender, Empire, and Postcolony: Luso-Afro-Brazilian Intersections is a diverse collection of essays on gender in Portuguese colonialism and Lusophone postcolonialism.

After motivating examples, this monograph gives substantial new results on the analysis and control of linear repetitive processes. These include further applications of the abstract model based stability theory which, in particular, shows the critical importance to the dynamics developed of the structure of the initial conditions at the start of each new pass, the development of stability tests and performance bounds in terms of so-called 1D and 2D Lyapunov equations. It presents the development of a major bank of results on the structure and design of control laws, including the case when there is uncertainty in the process model description, together with numerically reliable computational algorithms. Finally, the application of some of these results in the area of iterative learning control is treated --- including experimental results from a chain conveyor system and a gantry robot system.

The objective of the EU Nonlinear Control Network Workshop was to bring together scientists who are already active in nonlinear control and young researchers working in this field. This book presents selectively invited contributions from the workshop, some describing state-of-the-art subjects that already have a status of maturity while others propose promising future directions in nonlinear control. Amongst others, following topics of nonlinear and adaptive control are included: adaptive and robust control, applications in physical systems, distributed parameter systems, disturbance attenuation, dynamic feedback, optimal control, sliding mode control, and tracking and motion planning.

Industrial processes such as long-wall coal cutting and me- tal rolling, together with certain areas of 2D signal and image processing, exhibit a repetitive, or multipass struc- ture characterized by a series of sweeps of passes through a known set of dynamics. The output, or pass profile, produced on each pass explicitly contributes to that produced on the text. This interpass interaction can lead to the growth of oscillations, and hence a form of instability, in the se- quence of pass profiles which require control strategies that explicitly incorporate the essential repetitive struc- ture of the process in their decision making. This monograph is unique in developing the new techniques necessary for sy- stematic control systems design in the form of a stability theory and computationally feasible stability tests based on finite simulations and polynomial analysis. Its development requires a basic knowledge of linear frequency domain and state-space theory and a knowledge of basic functional ana- lysis would be beneficial. The text is aimed at researchers in the area of control and systems theory and should also be of interest to those working in the related area of signal and image processing.

The current environment and management in organizations is not conducive to leadership development. Most large organizations in the world try to develop leaders through training, be it in-house programmes or external courses.
In this new book, Hilarie Owen shows us that the sort of training available is not necessarily working. Leadership is a personal journey as demonstrated in the 'prequel' to this book In Search of Leaders, and training courses alone are limited in their effectiveness, especially when individuals have to return to organizations where the structure, culture and rigid processes do not allow them to 'be leaders'.
This book offers a way forward where organizations will be able to transform themselves to become places where the potential of existing leaders and 'would-be' leaders can be expressed.
Hilarie Owen outlines a holistic model, containing seven interconnecting actions that will help organizations transform to be adaptable to leaders.
The outcome, if an organization follows this model, is a unique 'web structure' as opposed to the traditional hierarchies or organizations. The web structure in an organization promotes productivity and the release of an individual's potential.
In a climate where staff retention and motivation is a problem, managers stand to learn some important lessons from this book.
"Leadership is the right of those at the top of the organization - but we are all at the top of something in our life. We all have the potential to postively effect things, but such leadership requires personal courage. Unleashing Leaders will be compelling reading for you, if you have that courage." Anthony J Stables, Air Vice Marshall

This book examines key twentieth-century philosophers, theologians, and social scientists who began their careers with commitments to the political left only later to reappraise or reject them. Their reevaluation of their own previous positions reveals not only the change in their own thought but also the societal changes in the culture, economics, and politics to which they were reacting. By exploring the evolution of the political thought of these philosophers, this book draws connections among these thinkers and schools and discovers the general trajectory of twentieth-century political thinking in the West.

Well the Florida based dive team the Sea Dogs find themselves deep in it again. After a month long venture in the Mediterranean Sea looking for the Lost City of Atlantis. They decide, hey! Why not build it themselves. It started out pretty easily, but like always, their plans become someone else's. They stumble onto a blue hole that has never been charted. In it they find a shipwreck from WWII, along with a nuclear weapon which never made it to the European Theater of Operation. Their plan to rebuild "The Lost City of Atlantis" are put on hold once again, when they find them caught up in counterfeit money scheme, a lost treasure, the Ghost of Black Beard the Pirate, the FBI's most wanted list, and having to hide in the Governor's Mansion, and that's when things were going well.

So get your scuba gear ready and dive into another crazy adventure with those zany Sea Dogs. It's an Adventure you can't put down weather you want to or not.