One Sunday in February 1987, protesters stood outside the Unitarian Universalist Church of Amherst in Massachusetts, whose minister planned to hand out condoms during his sermon, dramatizing the need for the church to confront the AIDS crisis. The minister gave out nearly five hundred condoms as the audience exploded into applause. But he could not hang around to enjoy it; having received threats in advance of the service, he dashed out of the sanctuary immediately. Thus was the climate for religious AIDS activism in the mid-1980s. After the Wrath of God is the first book to tell the story of American religion and the AIDS epidemic. Anthony Petro shows how religious leaders and organizations posited AIDS as a religious and moral epidemic, and analyzes how this construction has informed cultural and political debates about public health and sexual morality. While most attention to religion and AIDS foregrounds the role of the Religious Right, this book examines the much broader-and more influential-range of mainline Protestant, evangelical, and Catholic groups that shaped public discussions of AIDS prevention and care in the U.S. The AIDS epidemic, Petro argues, effected a shift in Christian rhetoric regarding sexuality. Mainstream religious groups almost uniformly called for compassion for those afflicted with the disease. While the Christian Right focused on what not to do, an increasing number of mainstream religious leaders promoted instead a positive prescription for sex, one more readily taken up in public health endeavors and sex education curricula alike-a vision that informs debates over sexual morality to this day.

From the reviews:
"It survives the pitfalls of this fashion-conscious era by pursuing a rigorously independent-minded attitude to contemporary ideas. The level is introductory undergraduate, with rather little mathematics but a strong physical basis.
...The second part, on general relativity and cosmology, provides a good account of modern theoretical ideas, from rotating black holes to Grand Unified Theories and inflation. The third part is an excellent and profound discussion of the fundamental problems of cosmology. For anyone with a philosophical turn of mind this section alone makes the book essential reading." Nature

Following the success of the first edition, this thoroughly updated second edition of "Image Processing: The Fundamentals" will ensure that it remains the ideal text for anyone seeking an introduction to the essential concepts of image processing. New material includes image processing and colour, sine and cosine transforms, Independent Component Analysis (ICA), phase congruency and the monogenic signal and several other new topics. These updates are combined with coverage of classic topics in image processing, such as orthogonal transforms and image enhancement, making this a truly comprehensive text on the subject.

Key features: Presents material at two levels of difficulty: the main text addresses the fundamental concepts and presents a broad view of image processing, whilst more advanced material is interleaved in boxes throughout the text, providing further reference for those who wish to examine each technique in depth. Contains a large number of fully worked out examples. Focuses on an understanding of how image processing methods work in practice. Illustrates complex algorithms on a step-by-step basis, and lists not only the good practices but also identifies the pitfalls in each case. Uses a clear question and answer structure. Includes a CD containing the MATLAB(R) code of the various examples and algorithms presented in the book. There is also an accompanying website with slides available for download for instructors as a teaching resource.

"Image Processing: The Fundamentals, Second Edition" is an ideal teaching resource for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. It will also be of value to researchers of various disciplines from medicine to mathematics with a professional interest in image processing

"Mystery in the Mountains" is a sequel to "Joe Cynik: Don't get me started." Joe Cynic continues his adventures while trout fishing in Idaho on vacation. He befriends an elderly man along the river who is murdered by two drug-dealing criminals. He joins the State Police in the investigation and meets a beautiful Patrolwoman who becomes his romantic interest. During the investigation, Joe suffers life-threatening injuries, is lost in the wilderness and is attacked by a bear. He is hospitalized and banished from the investigation due to his "loner attitude" and missteps. Depressed, he heads for home and a surprising conclusion.

On a cold February morning in 1987, amidst freezing rain and driving winds, a group of protesters stood outside of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Amherst, Massachusetts. The target of their protest was the minister inside, who was handing out condoms to his congregation while delivering a sermon about AIDS, dramatizing the need for the church to confront the seemingly ever-expanding crisis. The minister's words and actions were met with a standing ovation from the overflowing audience, but he could not linger to enjoy their applause. Having received threats in advance of the service, he dashed out of the sanctuary immediately upon finishing his sermon. Such was the climate for religious AIDS activism in the 1980s. In After the Wrath of God, Anthony Petro vividly narrates the religious history of AIDS in America. Delving into the culture wars over sex, morality, and the future of the American nation, he demonstrates how religious leaders and AIDS activists have shaped debates over sexual morality and public health from the 1980s to the present day. While most attention to religion and AIDS foregrounds the role of the Religious Right, Petro takes a much broader view, encompassing the range of mainline Protestant, evangelical, and Catholic groups-alongside AIDS activist organizations-that shaped public discussions of AIDS prevention and care in the U.S. Petro analyzes how the AIDS crisis prompted American Christians across denominations and political persuasions to speak publicly about sexuality-especially homosexuality-and to foster a moral discourse on sex that spoke not only to personal concerns but to anxieties about the health of the nation. He reveals how the epidemic increased efforts to advance a moral agenda regarding the health benefits of abstinence and monogamy, a legacy glimpsed as much in the traction gained by abstinence education campaigns as in the more recent cultural purchase of gay marriage. The first book to detail the history of religion and the AIDS epidemic in the U.S., After the Wrath of God is essential reading for anyone concerned with the intersection of religion and public health.