Automation in aviation can be a lifesaver, expertly guiding a plane and its passengers through stormy weather to a safe landing. Or it can be a murderer, crashing an aircraft and killing all on board in the mistaken belief that it is doing the right thing. Lawrence Sperry invented the autopilot just ten years after the Wright brothers' first flight in 1903\. But progress was slow for the next three decades. Then came the end of the Second World War and the jet age. That's when the real trouble began. Aviation automation has been pushed to its limits, with pilots increasingly replying on it. Autopilot, autothrottle, autoland, flight management systems, air data systems, inertial guidance systems. All these systems are only as good as their inputs which, incredibly, can go rogue. Even the automation itself is subject to unpredictable failure. Can automation account for every possible eventuality? And what of the pilots? They began flight training with their hands on the throttle and yoke, and feet on the rudder pedals. Then they reached the pinnacle of their careers -airline pilot -and suddenly they were going hours without touching the controls other than for a few minutes on takeoff and landing. Are their skills eroding? Is their training sufficient to meet the demands of today's planes? _The Dangers of Automation in Airliners_ delves deeply into these questions. You'll be in the cockpits of the two doomed Boeing 737 MAXs, the Airbus A330 lost over the South Atlantic, and the Bombardier Q400 that stalled over Buffalo. You'll discover exactly why a Boeing 777 smacked into a seawall, missing the runway on a beautiful summer morning. And you'll watch pilots battling -sometimes winning and sometimes not -against automation run amok. This book also investigates the human factors at work. You'll learn why pilots might overlook warnings or ignore cockpit alarms. You'll observe automation failing to alert aircrews of what they crucially need to know while fighting to save their planes and their passengers. The future of safe air travel depends on automation. This book tells its story.

The present volume contains articles pertaining to a wide variety of sub- jects such as conformal and quasi conformal mappings and related extremal problems, Riemann surfaces, meromorphic functions, subharmonic functions, approximation and interpolation, and other questions of complex analysis. These contributions by mathematicians from allover the world express con- sideration and friendship for Albert Pfluger. They reflect the wide range of his interests. Albert Pfluger was born on 13 October 1907 in Oensingen (Kanton Solothurn) as the oldest son of a Swiss farmer. After a classical education he studied Mathematics at the ETH-Zurich. Among his teachers were Hopf, Plancherel, P6lya and Saxer. P6lya was his Ph.D. adviser. After some teaching at high schools (Gymnasien), he became professor at the University of Fribourg, and a few years later (1943) he was appointed as successor of P6lya at the ETH. He retired in 1978, but has always remained very active in research. Pfluger's lectures were highly appreciated by the students. His vivid and clear teaching stimulated and challenged them to independent thinking. Many of his Ph.D. students are now themselves teaching in universities. His main research relates to the following fields: entire functions, Riemann surfaces, quasi conformal mappings, schlicht functions. (See list of publica- tions.) He collaborated with several mathematical colleagues, in particular with Rolf Nevanlinna, who taught parallel to him at the University of Zurich. In 1973 Pfluger was nominated foreign member of the Finnish Academy of Sciences.

(Karl Jaspers Vorlesungen zu Fragen der Zeit)

With the tension of the riveting, seminal track race embedded in its narrative, Relax and Go: On Running and Surviving Parental Trauma is the inspirational response of a father to his children's traumas. Duke University's most valuable cross country runner of 1987 serendipitously re-encounters and marries his childhood sweetheart on his way to living the American dream only to learn that the setbacks he faced as a successful athlete are trivial compared to the emotional toil of having two of his three children diagnosed with diabetes-one of whom was already struggling with significant learning differences. While Relax and Go will swiftly engage any parent whose child is suddenly diagnosed with a serious condition, disability, or even a lesser trauma, it possesses the fleshy characters of quality literary fiction. The infant boy with reflux becomes the four year old with juvenile diabetes, but even after his diagnosis with asthma and an extended recovery process from multiple concussions, he retains his indomitable spirit and disarming sense of humor. The story of the learning different youngest child and her struggles with dyslexia, ADHD, processing and anxiety disorders, and eventual juvenile diabetes diagnosis is immediately alarming: "I am stupid. I am ugly." Her moving story is heartbreaking as she thoughtfully exclaims, "God made a mistake. Only Ben was supposed to get diabetes." Yet, she is triumphant as she learns to read and understand herself: ." . . Mommy and Daddy were right. I am not ugly and I am not stupid." The self-described "Oreo filling" middle child could have been easily crushed by the extraordinary attention necessarily dedicated to her "top and bottom" siblings, but like that cookie's center, she cements the parts with her strength. She also endures the effects of concussions as a pre and young teen, but her second occurrence receives characteristically short attention as her little sister is soon diagnosed with diabetes. It would be understandable for her to be resentful. Instead, she merely wishes that she could be a better sister. The self-possessed narrator who grows through his struggles, learning how much is beyond his control, and how to treasure the rewards of investing in the journey. As a child, he must navigate his own course through the landmines of his own parents' crumbling marriage.