Forty thought provoking features from Yorkshire - a must for expats and fans of the Broad Acres alike.

For more than 100 years the Beilstein Handbook has been publishing checked and evaluated data on organic compounds. It has become the major reference book for the chemical and physical properties of organic com pounds. The prediction of these physical properties was the subject of the Beilstein workshop. The ability to predict physical properties is for several reasons of great interest to the Beilstein Institute. It is of primary importance to be able to check the abstracted data for accuracy and to eliminate simple mistakes like typing errors. Presently all the work whether manuscript writing or evaluation of data is carried out manually. This is very time consuming, with the entry of Beilstein into electronic data gathering and publication, the opportunity for computerized consistency checking has become available. Contrary to belief, when one examines the Beilstein Handbook or Chemical Abstracts there is a dearth of chemical information. There are a great many compounds but few are well defined resulting in large gaps in the information available to the chemist. These information gaps could be filled by using algorithmic methods to estimate the properties of interest. An important question to answer is "What is the chemist's reaction to estimated data?" Will he accept it for use, within limits defined by the method, or will it be unacceptable and therefore detrimental for the data base. However if one could partly fill gaps in the data base the increase in the power of the search techniques would be marked."

Bond of Blood tells the story of two Irish brothers, each of whom makes the life-changing journey to the new world as the second half of the 19th century draws on. Thomas and Michael Casey are linked by blood, but find themselves on opposite sides of the US Civil War conflict. Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh, Scotland and began writing after a career in education. He has published a series of US Civil War books, and "Bond of Blood" is his eighth title. By the same author: A Gathering of Soldiers Hard Passage North The Rappahannock Line Mirage of Victory The Bitterest Enemy A Season for Killing A Deepening Twilight

It is the late summer of 1863 and the third year of the war in North America. In the wake of the defeat at Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee has returned, with his Confederate army, to Virginia. But a further crisis to the west, in the Tennessee theatre of the war, compels the general to detach a part of his army, to journey west to north Georgia in order to reinforce the beleaguered southern forces there. Daniel Ryan and his comrades of The Ogeechee Volunteer Rifles are among those making this journey, which leads them to a savage battlefield at Chickamauga Creek. There follows a dismal season of endurance and hardship, testing, as never before, the courage and resolve of the men of the Company B, who are called upon face an ordeal of blood and death, worse than any they have yet encountered. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ About the author - Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Scotland and commenced writing after a career in education. "The Bitterest Enemy" is his seventh book, based on the experiences of Daniel Ryan, an Irish recruit in the Confederate States army. The author is currently working on a further title, set also in the war of 1861-65. By the same author: A Gathering of Soldiers Hard Passage North The Rappahannock Line Mirage of Victory A Season for Killing A Deepening Twilight

It is May of 1863 and the Civil War in North America has entered its third year. Facing a range of enemy threats, southern commander General Robert E. Lee proposes an invasion of the northern states to supply his army, relieve pressure on other imperilled fronts and to seek decisive victory on enemy territory that could end the war. Irish immigrant Daniel Ryan serves with his comrades of a Georgian regiment as the campaign unfolds, with Lee's army manoeuvring northwards through Virginia and across the Potomac River into Maryland and Pennsylvania, moving towards a fateful encounter with the Union army around the market town of Gettysburg. Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. He began writing after a career in education and "Mirage of Victory" is his sixth book, based on the experiences of Daniel Ryan in the American Civil War of 1861-65. Other novels by the same author: A Gathering of Soldiers Hard Passage North The Rappahannock Line A Season for Killing A Deepening Twilight

Hicks pens the story of the heroic rescue of the famed 7th Cavalry by the 9thCavalry Buffalo Soldiers.

"A Season for Killing" is told from the perspective of Daniel Ryan, a corporal in Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Virginia in 1864 during the American Civil War, as the brutal campaign in the spring and summer of that year unfolds. Ryan, an Irish immigrant in a Georgian brigade, serves heroically in a succession of battles as the Confederate Army is forced back through Virginia to their capital city of Richmond. Ryan witnesses the steady decline of his Confederate Army, yet he fights on as best he can. What we find in this novel are the perennial issues of conflict, turmoil, futility and loss, contrasted with the finer human qualities of bravery, love and hope.

It is the autumn of 1864 and the Confederate raider Palmetto is in Far Eastern waters, where an encounter with Malay pirates and an attack by hostile islanders have left her seriously undermanned. Thomas Grover, Palmetto's captain, must continue to elude the US warships hunting for his ship, while somehow finding a way of recruiting replacements for his crew. Failure to accomplish this will compel him to undertake a hazardous, return voyage to the American coast, where the overwhelming strength of the US blockading fleet awaits his beleaguered vessel.

It is the spring of 1864 and the Confederate raider Palmetto is off the Philippines, pursuing her campaign against US shipping. For her captain, Thomas Grover there is much to consider, for with the ship's previously sustained engine damage not fully repaired, he learns that these seas are now patrolled by a new Union warship that vastly overmatches his own ship. As the war turns increasingly against the south, Grover must redouble his efforts against the enemy, but the hidden threats facing him are as dangerous as the known ones. About the author: Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire and began writing after a career in education. "Nothing Without Honour" is his eleventh book and continues the "Palmetto" series. He is currently working on a further title. By the same author: A Gathering of Soldiers Hard Passage North The Rappahannock Line Mirage of Victory The Bitterest Enemy A Season for Killing A Deepening Twilight Bond of Blood Palmetto An Instrument of War

It is August 1863 and the Confederate Navy Cruiser Palmetto escapes from Charleston harbour to resume her career as a raider, hunting the shipping of the United States. The succeeding months see her range the Atlantic Ocean before facing a wild passage of Cape Horn, as her Captain Thomas Grover steers his ship for the Orient, seeking ever more victims in his mission to cripple the overseas commerce of the enemy. Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire Scotland and began writing after a career in education. "An Instrument of War," the sequel to "Palmetto," is his tenth book, all of them set in the war of 1861-65. He is currently working on the third and final book of the "Palmetto" series. By the same author: A Gathering of Soldiers Hard Passage North The Rappahannock Line Mirage of Victory The Bitterest Enemy A Season for Killing A Deepening Twilight Bond of Blood Palmetto

It is 1861 and Thomas Grover has resigned from the US Navy to go with his native state of South Carolina which has left the Union. For two years his career in the new Confederate Navy is tedious and unrewarding. He is posted to Britain as a naval attache, again denied his wish for active service, until he is transferred to Liverpool where he is offered command of a new warship. Grover must get to sea on the ship and see her armed and commissioned as CSS Palmetto, whose mission will be that of a predator, to range the oceans, seeking out and destroying American vessels wherever they are to be found.