Over recent years, the increasing scope of A. S. Byatt's work as a writer has fostered a corresponding breadth of academic interest both in the traditional field of literary criticism and beyond the discipline among scholars of the natural and social sciences. Most of this research has been limited to conference papers, interviews, and articles scattered across a wide variety of journals and has examined only the most basic critical issues related to Byatt's writing. This volume provides the first substantive inquiry into her fiction and spans virtually the entire body of her work.

By advancing multiple and mutually informative theoretical frameworks for a critical appreciation of Byatt's work as a writer, this book surveys and furthers the growing critical interest in her fiction. Contending that Byatt's work renders the boundaries between criticism and fiction highly permeable, the responses to her work gathered in this volume purposely blur the demarcation lines between the different schools of thought currently fighting for critical supremacy. In doing so, they explore the narrative and intellectual terrain mapped out by one of Britain's most imaginative novelists and contribute to current debates on the contemporary novel in England.

Provides a critical understanding and evaluation of police tactics and the use of force Police violence has historically played an important role in shaping public attitudes toward the government. Community trust and confidence in policing have been undermined by the perception that officers are using force unnecessarily, too frequently, or in problematic ways. The use of force, or harm suffered by a community as a result of such force, can also serve as a flashpoint, a spark that ignites long-simmering community hostility. In Evaluating Police Uses of Force, legal scholar Seth W. Stoughton, former deputy chief of police Jeffrey J. Noble, and distinguished criminologist Geoffrey P. Alpert explore a critical but largely overlooked facet of the difficult and controversial issues of police violence and accountability: how does society evaluate use-of-force incidents? By leading readers through answers to this question from four different perspectives-constitutional law, state law, administrative regulation, and community expectations-and by providing critical information about police tactics and force options that are implicated within those frameworks, Evaluating Police Uses of Force helps situate readers within broader conversations about governmental accountability, the role that police play in modern society, and how officers should go about fulfilling their duties.

A Tale Blazed Through Heaven examines developments in the representation of the classical tale of Mars, Venus, and Vulcan in the literature and painting of the Golden Age of Spain (c.1526-1681). Anchored in close analysis of individual primary texts, the five chapters that comprise this study assess how poets and painters breathed new life into the tale inherited from Homer, Ovid, and others, examining some of the ways in which the story of Mars, Venus, and Vulcan was disguised, developed, expanded, mocked, combined with or played off against different subjects, or otherwise modified in order to pique the interest of successive generations of readers and viewers. Each chapter discusses what particular changes and shifts in emphasis reveal about the tale itself, specific renderings, the aims and intentions of individual poets and painters, and the wider context of the literary and visual culture of Early Modern Spain. Discussing a range of poems by both canonical (Garcilaso de la Vega, Luis de Gongora, Lope de Vega, etc.) and less well-known writers (Juan de la Cueva, Alonso de Castillo Solorzano, Salvador Jacinto Polo de Medina, etc.), and culminating in detailed examination of select mythological works by Philip IV's court painter, Diego Velazquez, this book sheds light on questions relating to aspects of classical reception in the Renaissance, the rise of specific poetic styles (epic, mock-epic, burlesque, etc.), the interplay between the sister arts of poetry and painting, and the continual process of imitation and invention that was one of the defining features of the Spanish Golden Age.

Provides a critical understanding and evaluation of police tactics and the use of force Police violence has historically played an important role in shaping public attitudes toward the government. Community trust and confidence in policing have been undermined by the perception that officers are using force unnecessarily, too frequently, or in problematic ways. The use of force, or harm suffered by a community as a result of such force, can also serve as a flashpoint, a spark that ignites long-simmering community hostility. In Evaluating Police Uses of Force, legal scholar Seth W. Stoughton, former deputy chief of police Jeffrey J. Noble, and distinguished criminologist Geoffrey P. Alpert explore a critical but largely overlooked facet of the difficult and controversial issues of police violence and accountability: how does society evaluate use-of-force incidents? By leading readers through answers to this question from four different perspectives-constitutional law, state law, administrative regulation, and community expectations-and by providing critical information about police tactics and force options that are implicated within those frameworks, Evaluating Police Uses of Force helps situate readers within broader conversations about governmental accountability, the role that police play in modern society, and how officers should go about fulfilling their duties.

"Bayesian Networks: An Introduction" provides a self-contained introduction to the theory and applications of Bayesian networks, a topic of interest and importance for statisticians, computer scientists and those involved in modelling complex data sets. The material has been extensively tested in classroom teaching and assumes a basic knowledge of probability, statistics and mathematics. All notions are carefully explained and feature exercises throughout.

Features include:

An introduction to Dirichlet Distribution, Exponential Families and their applications.A detailed description of learning algorithms and Conditional Gaussian Distributions using Junction Tree methods.A discussion of Pearl's intervention calculus, with an introduction to the notion of see and do conditioning.All concepts are clearly defined and illustrated with examples and exercises. Solutions are provided online.

This book will prove a valuable resource for postgraduate students of statistics, computer engineering, mathematics, data mining, artificial intelligence, and biology.

Researchers and users of comparable modelling or statistical techniques such as neural networks will also find this book of interest.

Hello my name is Sarah Alexander.....and I'm a chocoholic I've been this way for as long as I can remember..... Chocolate has been my passion since I was young and even as an adult, I dream about this yummy confection. Well I don't always dream of chocolate though..... I do dream about Max Taylor, one of the executives in the office where I work at as a file clerk. I mean who wouldn't want to dream about a man who sends my heart racing every time I would look his way. Soon Max and I get to know one another and we both realize that we have one thing in common with one another besides our love for one another..... An obsession over chocolate..... HER CHOCOLATE FANTASY is a story about what happens when you get two chocoholics together.....and all of the hot sweetness that happens in between.

From the palm trees of Fresno, California to the pine trees of Machias, Maine, Home to New England follows the cross-country journey of author Clifton J. Noble, Sr. and his mother, Minnie Emerson Noble, as they continue their faith-driven quest for a home of their own. Join them as they board the train in California to return to family and friends introduced in Noble's books 31 High and California Here We Come. Meet new friends and benefactors the two encounter as they face and overcome new challenges in pursuit of their American dream.

The Nobles lose their home at 31 High Street to mortgage foreclosure in 1939, and widow Minnie Emerson Noble has to "win the bread" until June 1942 when her son Jerry finishes high school. During those three years, animated movies, art, bicycles, blueberries, church, dancing school, friends (one with ESP), music, even murder, impact the lives of mother and son until they board a train bound for Fresno, California on the day after 16-year-old Jerry's graduation.

Staying a few months with Minnie's sister and her capable, one-armed Welsh husband until Jerry can become breadwinner, the Nobles embark on a new world of adventure in a strange city. They live independently in rented cottages and explore wartime California by bicycle and friends' automobiles, seeing the sights from Fresno to Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Yosemite National Park. As clerk, doorman, draftsman, and student, Jerry encounters optometrists, preachers, projectionists, sailors, singers, soldiers, usherettes. People from all backgrounds and all walks of life help him and his mother depend upon and build their faith in uncertain times.

Born in 1926, in Westfield, Massachusetts, author Clifton J. (Jerry) Noble lived in the house at 31 High Street with his parents, Clifton and Minnie Noble. Jerry's many adventures in this small New England town offer an appealing overview of the simplicity of life during the 1920s and 1930s. Trolley cars and trains, both steam and electric, roll eastward to Boston and to the Massachusetts coast at Marblehead, where Noble learns the hard way about seventh waves and small boats. Initially home schooled by a wise and loving mother, young Noble revels in puppets and the theater-despite his father's objections-and later prevails over problems with public school and a junior high school principal. Jerry's escapades range from the impromptu bath he receives when his next door neighbor, Eulalie, pushes him into a park pond, to an encounter with the widow of famous American composer Edward MacDowell in a New Bedford hotel and an experience with zero gravity involving his uncle Sam's1930s Buick and a mound-covered culvert. Delve into the vivid memories of the first thirteen years of Noble's life in his delightful memoir, "31 High."