Setting the standard for modern cob construction – from design, engineering, and building code compliance, to sculpting beautiful structures Cob – a mix of clay, sand, and straw – is one of the most popular and well-known natural building methods. Yet cob is often difficult to permit and can be used in inappropriate ways due to a lack of sound engineering and design information. Recent research and a newly developed building code promise to make cob building more accessible than ever. Essential Cob Building sets the new standard for cob construction. Incorporating rigorous, up-to-date engineering and building science and decades of practical lessons learned, coverage includes: Appropriate use of cob in different climates and contexts Thermal performance and moisture management Structural and architectural design considerations, including fire and earthquake resistance data from extensive laboratory testing Hands-on cob construction, including mix design, testing, manual and mechanical mixing, wall building, strong connections with foundations, roofs, and other structural elements, and finishing options Building code development and the permitting process for cob Planning, budgeting, and quality control The complete Cob Construction Appendix of the International Residential Code. Essential Cob Construction is required reading for engineers, architects, designers, contractors, and owner-builders working with this ancient, aesthetically pleasing, low-carbon building material.

"The Hand-Sculpted House inspired me to learn and do more and transformed how I saw homes and building in general."-Mother Earth News "If you follow it word for word you will build yourself a house no matter who you are."-Builder Paul Dillon, quoted in The Irish Times Are you ready for the Cob Cottage? This is a building method so old and so simple that it has been all but forgotten in the rush to synthetics. A cob cottage, however, might be the ultimate expression of ecological design, a structure so attuned to its surroundings that its creators refer to it as "an ecstatic house." The authors build a house the way others create a natural garden. They use the oldest, most available materials imaginable-earth, clay, sand, straw, and water-and blend them to redefine the future (and past) of building. Cob (the word comes from an Old English root, meaning "lump") is a mixture of non-toxic, recyclable, and often free materials. Building with cob requires no forms, no cement, and no machinery of any kind. Builders actually sculpt their structures by hand. Building with earth is nothing new to America; the oldest structures on the continent were built with adobe bricks. Adobe, however, has been geographically limited to the Southwest. The limits of cob are defined only by the builder's imagination. Cob offers answers regarding our role in Nature, family and society, about why we feel the ways that we do, about what's missing in our lives. Cob comes as a revelation, a key to a saner world. Cob has been a traditional building process for millennia in Europe, even in rainy and windy climates like the British Isles, where many cob buildings still serve as family homes after hundreds of years. Cob houses (or cottages, since they are always efficiently small by American construction standards) are not only compatible with their surroundings, they ARE their surroundings, literally rising up from the earth. They are full of light, energy-efficient, and cozy, with curved walls and built-in, whimsical touches. They are delightful. They are ecstatic.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.

The popularity of natural building has grown by leaps and bounds, spurred by a grassroots desire for housing that is healthy, affordable, and environmentally responsible. While there are many books available on specific methods such as straw-bale construction, cob, or timber framing, there are few resources which introduce the reader to the entire scope of this burgeoning field.

Fully revised and updated, "The Art of Natural Building" is the complete "and" user-friendly introduction to natural building for everyone from the do-it-yourselfer to architects and designers. This collection of articles from over fifty leaders in the field is now stunningly illustrated with over two-hundred full-color photographs of natural buildings from around the world. Learn about:

• The case for building with natural materials, from the perspectives of sustainability, lifestyle, and health
• What you need to know to plan and design your own beautiful and efficient natural home
• Explanations of thirty versatile materials and techniques, with resources on where to go for further information on each
• How these techniques are being used to address housing crises around the world.

Clearly written, logically organized, and beautifully illustrated, "The Art of Natural Building" is "the" encyclopedia of natural building.

Joseph F. Kennedy is a designer, builder, writer, artist, educator, and co-founder of Builders Without Borders.

Michael G. Smith is a respected workshop instructor, consultant, and co-author of the best-selling book "The Hand-Sculpted House."

Catherine Wanek is a co-founder of Builders Without Borders and author/photographer of "The Hybrid House" and "The New Straw Bale Home."

The Rocket Lab: Maurice Zucrow, Purdue University, and America's Race to Space focuses on the golden era of space exploration between 1946 and 1966, specifically the life and times of Purdue University's Dr. Maurice J. Zucrow, a pioneering teacher and researcher in aerospace engineering. Zucrow taught America's first university course in jet and rocket propulsion, wrote the field's first textbook, and established the country's first educational Rocket Lab. He was part of a small circle of innovators who transformed Purdue into the country's largest engineering university, which became a cradle of astronauts. Taking a chronological and thematic approach, The Rocket Lab weaves between the local and national, drawing in rival universities, especially Harvard, MIT, Princeton, and Caltech. Also covered is Zucrow's role in the national project system of research and development through World War II and the Cold War. At Aerojet, he was one of the country's original project engineers, dedicated to scientific-technical expertise and the stepwise approach. He made vanguard power plant contributions to the Northrop Flying Wing, as well as the Corporal, Nike, and Atlas missiles, among others. Zucrow's work in propulsion helped to improve the country's arsenal of ballistic missiles and space launchers, and as a teacher, he educated the first generation of aerospace engineers. This book elevates Zucrow and the central role he played in getting the United States to space.

The Rocket Lab: Maurice Zucrow, Purdue University, and America's Race to Space focuses on the golden era of space exploration between 1946 and 1966, specifically the life and times of Purdue University's Dr. Maurice J. Zucrow, a pioneering teacher and researcher in aerospace engineering. Zucrow taught America's first university course in jet and rocket propulsion, wrote the field's first textbook, and established the country's first educational Rocket Lab. He was part of a small circle of innovators who transformed Purdue into the country's largest engineering university, which became a cradle of astronauts. Taking a chronological and thematic approach, The Rocket Lab weaves between the local and national, drawing in rival universities, especially Harvard, MIT, Princeton, and Caltech. Also covered is Zucrow's role in the national project system of research and development through World War II and the Cold War. At Aerojet, he was one of the country's original project engineers, dedicated to scientific-technical expertise and the stepwise approach. He made vanguard power plant contributions to the Northrop Flying Wing, as well as the Corporal, Nike, and Atlas missiles, among others. Zucrow's work in propulsion helped to improve the country's arsenal of ballistic missiles and space launchers, and as a teacher, he educated the first generation of aerospace engineers. This book elevates Zucrow and the central role he played in getting the United States to space.

"Rockets and Revolution" offers a multifaceted study of the race toward space in the first half of the twentieth century, examining how the Russian, European, and American pioneers competed against one another in the early years to acquire the fundamentals of rocket science, engineer simple rockets, and ultimately prepare the path for human spaceflight.

Between 1903 and 1953, Russia matured in radical and dramatic ways as the tensions and expectations of the Russian revolution drew it both westward and spaceward. European and American industrial capacities became the models to imitate and to surpass. The burden was always on Soviet Russia to catch up--enough to achieve a number of remarkable "firsts" in these years, from the first national rocket society to the first comprehensive surveys of spaceflight. Russia rose to the challenges of its Western rivals time and again, transcending the arenas of science and technology and adapting rocket science to popular culture, science fiction, political ideology, and military programs.
While that race seemed well on its way to achieving the goal of space travel and exploring life on other planets, during the second half of the twentieth century these scientific advances turned back on humankind with the development of the intercontinental ballistic missile and the coming of the Cold War.

ACSC put a renewed focus on teaching leadership during the 1996 academic year. A fresh examination of "teaching leadership" was called for by this renewed emphasis. In order to provide the ACSC faculty with information and resources to develop the best leadership curriculum possible, this development study examined the course structure, content, teaching methods and evaluation criteria used in prominent military, professional, business and educational institutions. The first step in the study was to identify ACSC requirements through a review of both the past and present day ACSC curriculum, as well as interviews with individuals involved in the leadership community within ACSC and Air University. Then the study analyzed the findings which represent responses from seven military institutions, nine business and professional organizations, and twenty-three universities. Lastly, by combining ACSC requirements and the analysis, the study developed recommendations for future enhancements to the ACSC leadership. Recommendations were made for each of the areas of course structure, course content, methodology and evaluation. The recommendations for course structure included restructuring the sequence of course lessons to take a building block or hierarchical approach that more closely follows Bloom's Taxonomy. For course content, the school should consider conducting a similar research study next year, narrowing the focus to a specific theme or suggested area of study. Regarding teaching methods, ACSC should develop or purchase a CD-ROM interactive computer program to teach leadership. The school should increase the number of case studies as defined in the study. Additionally, the study recommends that a psychometric test be used that will help in identifying personality weaknesses. Such a test will balance the picture the individual student gets of him/herself from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) currently used by ACSC. Lastly, ACSC should then tap into the leader

You may have heard of the infamous dog snatches baby case that happened in Kentucky in July 2009. Just three days old, Baby AJ was fast asleep in his crib after a morning feeding. With his parents downstairs preparing for the rest of the day, Dakota and Nikita, two of the family dogs, snuck upstairs and opened the back door to the bedroom. Dakota then took AJ out of his crib and proceeded out back into the woods, carrying AJ in her mouth. The mother, Chrissie, is a British citizen and the father, Michael, was born in Indiana. Together they give a brief account of their lives prior to the accident followed by excruciating details of the accident itself including the 15 minutes it took to find their son and the nightmare they had to endure afterwards. Starting with the accident and the 911 call, followed by the emergency room and AJ's stay in Pediatric Intensive Care, Michael and Chrissie give a very personal account of the feelings and emotions they experienced along with pictures from their private collection. Although the story generated a massive media storm and immediately made national news, the public was generally shielded from the private details the couple had to deal with in the background. Michael and Chrissie intimately share those private details including social services and Sheriff investigations that ultimately resulted in information brought before the grand jury and formal child neglect charges filed against the couple. Michael and Chrissie gives you a chance to step into their shoes and experience what it was like to not only live through a horrifying accident of this nature but for all of the parents out there with newborns, wonder whether or not, Could This Happen To You?

You may have heard of the infamous dog snatches baby case that happened in Kentucky in July 2009. Just three days old, Baby AJ was fast asleep in his crib after a morning feeding. With his parents downstairs preparing for the rest of the day, Dakota and Nikita, two of the family dogs, snuck upstairs and opened the back door to the bedroom. Dakota then took AJ out of his crib and proceeded out back into the woods, carrying AJ in her mouth. The mother, Chrissie, is a British citizen and the father, Michael, was born in Indiana. Together they give a brief account of their lives prior to the accident followed by excruciating details of the accident itself including the 15 minutes it took to find their son and the nightmare they had to endure afterwards. Starting with the accident and the 911 call, followed by the emergency room and AJ's stay in Pediatric Intensive Care, Michael and Chrissie give a very personal account of the feelings and emotions they experienced along with pictures from their private collection. Although the story generated a massive media storm and immediately made national news, the public was generally shielded from the private details the couple had to deal with in the background. Michael and Chrissie intimately share those private details including social services and Sheriff investigations that ultimately resulted in information brought before the grand jury and formal child neglect charges filed against the couple. Michael and Chrissie gives you a chance to step into their shoes and experience what it was like to not only live through a horrifying accident of this nature but for all of the parents out there with newborns, wonder whether or not, Could This Happen To You?

The UN intervention in East Timor illustrates the type of complex operation that the United Nations increasingly being asked to undertake. Michael Smith analyzes the successes and failures of the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), which was designed to work in partnership with the East Timorese in guiding the country to independence following the 1999 vote to secede from Indonesia. This is an account of a UN mission in the unfamiliar role of interim government - a mission dealing with critical requirements for good governance, sustainable development, and effective military and police forces. Evaluating the lessons learned from the experience, he highlights the urgent need forreforms within the UN. The absence of those reforms, he believes,will lead to more failed states, more refugees, more poverty,and more dead peacekeepers.