Read this book in order to learn:
· Why medicines often fail to produce the desired result and how such failures can be avoided
· How to think about drug product safety and effectiveness
· How the main participants in a medications use system can improve outcomes and how professional and personal values, attitudes, and ethical reasoning fit into drug therapy
· What a properly designed and managed medications use system would look like - specific components, how the components fit together into a system, and how the system can be maintained and improved
· Ways to evaluate medications use systems, how to recognize ineffective systems operations, how to identify missing system components and how to correct them
· How the environment of medications use affects systems operations and patient outcomes, and why standards must change to improve drug safety and effectiveness

Drug-related illnesses and complications cost the health care system billions of dollars each year. Medical errors account for approximately 100,000 deaths each year, and drugs are the most common cause of medical errors in hospitals. Synthesizing research studies from seven nations, Preventing Medication Errors and Improving Drug Therapy Outcomes: A Management Systems Approach explores medications use from a social perspective. It identifies and describes the preventable adverse outcomes of drug therapy, discusses the safety, cost-effectiveness, and quality of medications use from a management systems perspective, and proposes systematic solutions.

On or about the 6th of April 2010, the Icelandic volcano known as Eyjafjallajokull began quietly churning and four days later, in an act of super-human magnanimity, Europe's governments opted en masse to close their air space indefinitely, marking the most-massive interruption to routine transportation in sixty five years and more poignantly, approximating the first time its many leaders had acted in unison against a common enemy, no less so quickly. Roughly 100,000 travelers were stranded, including you guessed it, us. Never has a plume of volcanic ash so punched above its weight, but when scientific expert after instant expert was paraded before TV 24 News, the universal response was "we just don't know." This is the story of near-freaking in the face of adversity and throwing caution to the wind, and getting back home by train, plane and virtually every other mode of transportation except pantomime circus elephant, while fighting against the Big Machine at every opportunity, mixed metaphors and all."

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger; I want to become very strong. The Day the Muses Died brings together many themes and elements of my short stories, books and novellas, from special interests, lovers and friends don't you know, we pray when it counts, we tale-tell for show. But wait, there's more. Aside from the poetry of life's true despair, a maxim or two and a vendetta to air. Not so much a journey but a recap for when we are older, recanted with flair and a fair wind blowing over our shoulder. The villains, the heroes, will they live to see the day? Read the book, you'll find out, the book, you don't say. I'm so out of words, I've tossed them all in, now or never choose verbs, may the best some day win. The Day the Muses Died you may find, represents one final perfect moment, frozen in time.

It is often said that childhood maketh the man. Maybe or maybe not, but it's definitely good source material for amusing stories. From characters such as pre-teen lumberjack in science class and aunt who doesn't believe she will age beyond 29, to Richard himself, an accidental insomniac, who was destined for a career as stand-up comic and newspaper humorist, after half a career gathering 'anecdotes' in a nine to five job. As could many of us, given the absurdities of it all, but there's plenty of time to think and compose when you're awake half the night. A short summer assignment brings him to London where he has to cope with, you guessed it, more freaks and despair, as he tries to escape into his local pub's paperback selection. However, he can't quite get comfortable in his own skin, at all. Was he born that way, or did something set him off? Richard's Eleven calls to mind top selling books dealing with depression, but this is how he'd have doodled one of them, shorter and to the point. This is a spiritual journey arguably better to watch than to live, but can mass transit be passive aggressive and can depressed people be funnier than normal people? Read on.

Return of the Drama Prince is the sequel to 2011's Nectar of the Lavender, fifteen years down the road. Rather than young, single, and gainfully employed, our main character is married with three children and now freelances, but in a most unexpected industrial pursuit. He has outgrown depression but has been unable to tackle in his mind sources of his inner social and professional conflict. He's outwardly relaxed and life should be fine, but he can't escape the Doldrums, and he fears he may run out of time before they envelop him. This condition he masks through exaggerated courtesy and friendliness, the opposite of his no-holds-barred approach to mediocrity and misanthropism when younger. Rather than society thugs obliging a fire-with-fire plan of attack, the new battle is against the passive aggressive, those with "glupie" tendencies and enemies of civility and efficiency. If you choose to fight city hall, the fight may never end. His decadence-era relationships are over, replaced by friendships with straighter-laced family men and white-collar workers of his bedroom community, including the bleeding heart conservative Lanford, public relations advisor to stars and bars, with occasional PR problems of his own. The in-laws visit, but this is opportunity rather than threat or worry. In confronting his demons, he revisits painful memories, and for ease of vanquishing, or so he thinks, he rolls them all into two. There is no lack of sensations uncovered during this journey, during which he comes into contact with a true American quilt.

Three Days in July is the tale of a ten-year journey to discover one's roots. From a London base, I scouted and scoured databases, joined ancestry forums and corresponded with archives in numerous countries, sometimes successfully. However, nothing can compare with understanding the land first hand. Accordingly, when I had time to spare this summer, I flew to Lithuania and rented a car, with a mission to absorb history with the aid of a contemporary personal lens and a smartphone, but no maps. Buy the ticket, take the ride. But wait, there's more. If one portion of the family was daring enough to live in 18th and 19th Century Belarus, I should be plucky enough to experience its 21st Century equivalent, no matter how many concentric mental loop-de-loops this entailed thanks to practice makes perfect bureaucratic madness. I encountered subtle reminders of civilizations past and common small urban emotions from my mostly rural upbringing to go with the tangible memories of understated national day celebrations, baby lambies acclimatizing themselves to the world in nature-ideal manor parks, and Belarusian crickets pleading for mercy in the blistering summer heat, as if all chronicled by an imaginary videographer. This is not your great grandfather's trip down memory lane or a meticulous depiction of a determined genealogy sleuth in for the long haul with nary the light by a miner's helmet to guide him. For one, I couldn't do it that way. For another, I didn't take any notes. This is the fictionalized version and on both counts, I think it's better that way.

Think yourself alive. The Victory Walk tells the story of one man's long struggle for the rights of the silent majority, told through the eyes of an idealistic yet practical part-time right hand man, who in the era of digital democracy, performs this role remotely. However, the Movement is but his evening and weekend devotion. Nine to five, he thrives in the dry world of municipal finance advisory, with podmates Gregory and Cameron, increasingly for county finance departments in Northern California, where he meets his match. The Victory Walk criss-crosses the United States in search of tactics and strategies to dislodge the entrenched special interests that have cornered the market for opportunity, and fill the vacuum instead with true fairness. This is the true story of the American dream, in all senses of the word. Can one person change the world? Yes, if we are all that one person.

A recently unemployed man wracked by the guilt of his best friend's suicide seeks revenge against those he believes are culpable. Armed with just a hard-drive, he must search for clues to take on the notorious Negatory Nine, the white collar thugs he holds responsible for Jeff's untimely death. On his emotional journey he addresses his own psychological scars through the cameo appearances of eccentric and colourful characters who help remind him of life's little pleasures. Ultimately he must decide whether he wants to sacrifice peace of mind in the pursuit of Jeff's honour, and whether the journey is more valuable than the destination. Nectar of the Lavender is an exciting account of one man's interpretation of the world he exists in, and resolves the question of whether society's domineering bullies can get away with committing violations without remorse.

THE GREAT ART DECO CHASE, part prequel to 2011's Nectar of the Lavender, traces our main character's relationships with the best and worst friends from his post formative years, including those also choosing to relocate from their small northeastern city to metro New York. If possible, there are more quirky characters and intense poetry than ever, breeding ground for more adventures than ever. As we learned in Nectar, he struggles to understand the passing of Jeff and Danny, and although his Malaysian-Caribbean friend Jimmy and Anglo-American friend Big Bad Bill fill in admirably, the balance isn't quite right, because across the verge, there remains Carol Gary, Weird Andy, and Danny's ex-wife Robin, of which more anon. And then there's Lauren, Kathy, and the rest of his social life, which is complicated on quiet days. Everyone would want to be him, and yet no one would. In a separate alternating side plot, or possibly main plot, we read of the story of Maury and Sam, two boys who became best friends in the 1930s, who parted as teenagers after Sam's parents moved to a bigger city in search of better educations. Both seek and find their fortunes-Maury as a specialized manufacturer in the Midwest, Sam as a charismatic composer and conductor all of America wishes it could claim. On a more personal note, this book is largely based on notes and correspondence from a time which was long ago and far away, and I've taken the liberty to cite some verbatim.

To serve society or humanity? It's been fourteen years since the basketball-mad detective Fran Obrien captured the urban bomber Lavi, who has since moved to Spain and rehabilitated himself beyond recognition. Fran is fresh off a two-year sabbatical, during which he tended to 11-year-old Ben, the family comedian, and 17-year-old Alice, with, yes, as much attitude as you'd expect. His estranged boss Karl has retired and Fran must learn to deal with the new brass - no small task itself.His first assignment is to investigate an act of alleged political corruption which seems more wild goose chase than duck in a barrel, leading him to question his decision to return to work. After an extended-family culinary expedition to Budapest, Fran's nine-to-five job takes him 'almost' to Albany and to Central America, where he must untangle the mother of all webs. His wife, local family doctor Darby, goes along for the ride, and, oh, pi a coladas "to die for." For a detective and amateur gourmet chef like no other, Cookbook for a New Europe is a ride Fran certainly didn't expect. He's been fiercely focused for years, but a spate of unintended yet momentous events unfolds once he gives free rein to his emotions, and his recipes.

Visual Analytics and Interactive Technologies: Data, Text and Web Mining Applications is a comprehensive reference on concepts, algorithms, theories, applications, software, and visualization of data mining, text mining, Web mining and computing/supercomputing. This publication provides a coherent set of related works on the state-of-the-art of the theory and applications of mining, making it a useful resource for researchers, practitioners, professionals and intellectuals in technical and non-technical fields.