Astrobiology not only investigates how early life took hold of our planet but also life on other planets - both in our Solar System and beyond - and their potential for habitability. The book take readers from the scars on planetary surfaces made by space rocks to the history of the Solar System narrated by those space rocks as well as exoplanets in other planetary systems. But the true question is how life arose here or elsewhere. Modern comparative genomics has revealed that Darwin was correct; a set of highly conserved genes and cellular functions indicate that all life is related by common ancestry. The Last Universal Common Ancestor or LUCA sits at the base of the Tree of Life. However, once that life took hold, it started to diversify and form complex microbial communities that are known as microbial mats and stromatolites. Due to their long evolutionary history and abundance on modern Earth, research on the biological, chemical and geological processes of stromatolite formation has provided important insights into the field of astrobiology. Many of these microbialite-containing ecosystems have been used as models for astrobiology, and NASA mission analogs including Shark Bay, Pavilion and Kelly Lakes. Modern microbialites represent natural laboratories to study primordial ecosystems and provide proxies for how life could evolve on other planets. However, few viral metagenomic studies (i.e., viromes) have been conducted in microbialites, which are not only an important part of the community but also mirror its biodiversity. This book focuses on particularly interesting sites such as Andean lake microbialites, a proxy of early life since they are characterized by very high UV light, while Alchichica and Bacalar lakes are characterized by high-salt and oligotrophic waters that nurture stromatolites. However, it is only the oasis of Cuatro Cienegas Basin in Mexico that stored past life in its marine sediments of the Sierra de San Marcos. This particular Sierra has a magmatic pouch that moves the deep aquifer to the surface in a cycle of sun drenched life and back to the depths of the magmatic life in an ancient cycle that now is broken by the overexploitation of the surface water as well as the deep aquifer in order to irrigate alfalfa in the desert. The anthropocene, the era of human folly, is killing this unique time machine and with it the memory of the planet.

What world has been constructed for dancing through the use of the term 'world dance'? What kinds of worlds do we as scholars create for a given dance when we undertake to describe and analyze it? This book endeavours to make new epistemological space for the analysis of the world's dance by offering a variety of new analytic approaches.

This literary biographical study examines the life and works of the mid-Victorian woman novelist, Elizabeth Gaskell, whose popularity is now well established. It places her writing in the context of her attitudes towards creative production, her relationship with publishers, and her literary friendships, as well as examining those events of her life which fed into her work. It pays particular attention to the ways in which she sought to reconcile the conflicting demands made upon her, as woman and as artist.

In one of the few studies to draw upon cemetery data to reconstruct the social organization, social change, and community composition of a specific area, this volume contributes to the growing body of sociohistorical examinations of Appalachia. The authors herein reconstruct the Cades Cove community in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, USA, a mountain community from circa 1818 to 1939, whose demise can be traced to the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. By supplementing a statistical analysis of Cades Cove's twenty-seven cemeteries, completed as a National Park Study (#GRSM-01120), with ethnographic examination, the authors reconstruct the community in detail to reveal previously overlooked social patterns and interactions, including insight into the death culture and death-lore of the Upland South. This work establishes cemeteries as window into (proxies of) communities, demonstrating the relevance of socio-demographic data presented by statistical and other analyses of gravestones for Appalachian Studies, Regional Studies, Cemetery Studies, and Sociology and Anthropology.

Enables leaders to "just make a decision", based on the founding principle that any decision is better than none, and provides a handy toolkit of a variety of concepts and tools to help them do so wisely and successfully Each of the models and frameworks was originated and tested by leading international strategic thinkers and practitioners. The authors have provided a brief summary of each tool, but more importantly have included links and references to the original texts and the website provides shortcuts to relevant online resources Links concepts and theories together sequentially, rather than listing them seperately, to expose the overlaps, contrasts and similarities between them and enable strategists to take on an integrative approach

Enables leaders to "just make a decision", based on the founding principle that any decision is better than none, and provides a handy toolkit of a variety of concepts and tools to help them do so wisely and successfully Each of the models and frameworks was originated and tested by leading international strategic thinkers and practitioners. The authors have provided a brief summary of each tool, but more importantly have included links and references to the original texts and the website provides shortcuts to relevant online resources Links concepts and theories together sequentially, rather than listing them seperately, to expose the overlaps, contrasts and similarities between them and enable strategists to take on an integrative approach

This book contains the most recent archaeological and ethnohistorical studies of west and northwest Mexico, two of the least known areas of Mesoamerica. It discusses areal and cultural syntheses and specific problems such as chronology, social organization, and economic systems.

Adorno and Philosophical Modernism: The Inside of Things offers an original interpretation and vigorous defense of Theodor Adorno's idea of philosophy as the practice of what Roger Foster calls "philosophical modernism." Adorno's philosophical writings, from the early 1930s to the mature works of the late 1960s, are deeply informed by a distinctively modernist vision of human experience. This book seeks to establish that Adorno's unique and lasting contribution to philosophy consists in his sustained and rigorous development of this modernist vision into an encompassing practice of philosophical interpretation. The essential features of this vision can be discerned in all of Adorno's major writings in philosophy, social theory, and aesthetics. Its defining element is the idea of a pattern underlying ordinary experience, which, although not directly accessible, can be disclosed by the reconstructive work of philosophical or literary language. This vision, Foster argues, can be discerned in the major works of literary modernism (including Woolf, Proust, and Musil) as well as in the interpretive technique of psychoanalysis developed by Sigmund Freud. The importance of Adorno's contribution to twentieth-century philosophy can only be fully appreciated by understanding how he developed this vision into an overarching practice of philosophical interpretation that furnished a coherent and profound response to the decay of experience afflicting late-modern societies. In this book, Foster expounds that interpretive practice, exploring its ramifications and, in particular, its relation with literary modernism, and places it in critical dialogue with alternative philosophical responses.

Adorno and Philosophical Modernism: The Inside of Things offers an original interpretation and vigorous defense of Theodor Adorno's idea of philosophy as the practice of what Roger Foster calls "philosophical modernism." Adorno's philosophical writings, from the early 1930s to the mature works of the late 1960s, are deeply informed by a distinctively modernist vision of human experience. This book seeks to establish that Adorno's unique and lasting contribution to philosophy consists in his sustained and rigorous development of this modernist vision into an encompassing practice of philosophical interpretation. The essential features of this vision can be discerned in all of Adorno's major writings in philosophy, social theory, and aesthetics. Its defining element is the idea of a pattern underlying ordinary experience, which, although not directly accessible, can be disclosed by the reconstructive work of philosophical or literary language. This vision, Foster argues, can be discerned in the major works of literary modernism (including Woolf, Proust, and Musil) as well as in the interpretive technique of psychoanalysis developed by Sigmund Freud. The importance of Adorno's contribution to twentieth-century philosophy can only be fully appreciated by understanding how he developed this vision into an overarching practice of philosophical interpretation that furnished a coherent and profound response to the decay of experience afflicting late-modern societies. In this book, Foster expounds that interpretive practice, exploring its ramifications and, in particular, its relation with literary modernism, and places it in critical dialogue with alternative philosophical responses.

A comprehensive textbook that overviews common technologies utilized within the homeland security enterprise with an emphasis on contemporary homeland security mission areas and end-user applications. Designed for students entering or currently working in the safety, security, and emergency management disciplines in the public or private sectors, this textbook presents a broad array of homeland security technology types from the viewpoint of end-user applications and homeland security mission areas. The authors investigate various theories behind the use of technologies and assess the importance of technologies for achieving goals and objectives. The content includes not only technical capabilities but also a blend of sample applications of technologies using an all-hazards framework and use cases at all levels of practice, including both the public and private sectors. The authors provide an overview of preparedness applications; preventive and protective systems; and mitigation, response, and recovery technologies. Topics such as ethical and privacy concerns associated with implementing technologies and use of the Internet and social media receive special attention. In addition to readers directly involved in the security disciplines, this book will be useful for students in technical fields of study such as geographic information systems (GIS), computer science, or engineering who are seeking information on standards, theories, and foundations underlining homeland security technologies.

The exciting, action-packed finale to The Rift Uprising trilogy that rivals the thrills and action of The Hunger Games and Red Rising.

Ryn Whittaker started an uprising. Now she has to end it.

Not long ago, Ryn knew what her future would be - as a Citadel, a genetically enhanced super-soldier, it was her job to protect her version of Earth among an infinite number of other versions in the vast Multiverse at any cost. But when Ezra Massad arrived on Ryn's Earth, her life changed in an instant, and he pushed her to start asking why she was turned into a Citadel in the first place.

What began as merely an investigation into her origins ended up hurling Ryn, Ezra, and Ryn's teammate Levi through the Multiverse and headlong into a conspiracy so vast and complex that Ryn can no longer merely be a soldier...she must now be a general. And in becoming a true leader, she must forge alliances with unpredictable species, make impossible decisions, and face deep sacrifices. She must lead not thousands, but hundreds of thousands of troops under her command and in doing so, leave any trace of her childhood behind.

Ryn always knew that she was created to fight. But now she must step forward and lead.

The Hummer: Myths and Consumer Culture is a study of the notorious automobile/sports utility vehicle. Featuring more than fifteen essays, this collection analyzes the Hummer through a wide array of disciplines, including material culture, marketing and advertising, popular culture, military technology, urban planning, and political economy. It provides a complete overview of the vehicle: production, marketing aspects, and cultural significance. The only book of its kind, The Hummer is of great value to cultural studies and American studies scholars and students, as well as to any general reader with an interest in contemporary American culture.

Based on recent archaeological surveys and excavations, the chapters in this volume provide current, comprehensive, area-by-area summaries of the region's Precolumbian past. Research in the last two decades has indicated that the evolution and adaptations of the indigenous cultures of the region parallel those found elsewhere in Mesoamerica, from the simple Formative groups to the complex states of the North. The topics discussed in the book--areal and cultural syntheses and specific problems such as chronology, social organization, and economic systems--present much new information crucial to the understanding of cultural variations in Mesoamerica.

The Hummer: Myths and Consumer Culture is a study of the notorious automobile/sports utility vehicle. Featuring more than fifteen essays, this collection analyzes the Hummer through a wide array of disciplines, including material culture, marketing and advertising, popular culture, military technology, urban planning, and political economy. It provides a complete overview of the vehicle: production, marketing aspects, and cultural significance. The only book of its kind, The Hummer is of great value to cultural studies and American studies scholars and students, as well as to any general reader with an interest in contemporary American culture.

Over one hundred and thirty years ago, pioneers arriving in Colorado during the Civil War era brought the game of baseball to the high and dry Rocky Mountains frontier. From the days of games in pastures with no gloves to the high drama of Coors Field and the Colorado Rockies, baseball and Coloradans have had a love affair that has continued to flourish over the decades. In THEY CAME TO PLAY, historians and avid baseball fans Duane Smith and Mark Foster have collected the finest historic baseball photographs of teams, players, and games from around the state. They are all here, the town teams, company teams, early professional clubs, and the ethnic teams that made baseball an integral part of the life and times in Colorado's mountain towns, prairie hamlets, and bustling frontier cities. Combined with the wonderful photographs and captions is an essay that brings baseball's rich heritage in Colorado to life for the reader.

Discover the successful marketing strategies of programs which have extended the resources of a university to its community. Marketing University Outreach Programs covers all aspects of continuing education program construction and the marketing process for positioning the university into the public. This book begins to eradicate academicians' fears of marketing by showing them a contemporary marketing plan using terminology and examples familiar to them.Seventeen contributors--professors, administrators, and outreach professionals--comprehensively describe the strategies being successfully used to extend the resources of a university to its community through programs of extension, public service, and continuing education. Although many existing models of the education process contain parallels to elements in a generic marketing process, education is not viewed as a consumer product. Even educators may not view themselves as marketers involved in a marketing process. This attitude can place barriers between understanding the marketing process and how it relates to education. Marketing University Outreach Programs helps educators overcome these potential barriers; it explains marketing as a comprehensive process using terminology and examples which university extension and education professionals will find familiar and understandable.Application-oriented, it cites numerous examples of how the marketing process can be put to use immediately. Each chapter explores in-depth a separate segment of the marketing process involved in public university outreach programs: issue-based versus discipline-based programs program delivery and delivery technology funding outreach programs comprehensive promotional strategy customer service long-range planning marketing research information resources future trends model programsThis book is of value to the faculty of universities, specifically those in the disciplines with a mandate for professional renewal or recertification (engineering, medicine, education); faculty and professional staff in divisions of continuing education; program leadership in cooperative extension organizations (as well as those in other identifiable university extension units); and faculty affiliated with applied research centers. Members of professional associations focused on higher education outreach can also successfully apply these strategies.

An original work of fiction first published in 1893, this is one volume in a series of thirty, The Schomberg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers.

Astrobiology not only investigates how early life took hold of our planet but also life on other planets - both in our Solar System and beyond - and their potential for habitability. The book take readers from the scars on planetary surfaces made by space rocks to the history of the Solar System narrated by those space rocks as well as exoplanets in other planetary systems. But the true question is how life arose here or elsewhere. Modern comparative genomics has revealed that Darwin was correct; a set of highly conserved genes and cellular functions indicate that all life is related by common ancestry. The Last Universal Common Ancestor or LUCA sits at the base of the Tree of Life. However, once that life took hold, it started to diversify and form complex microbial communities that are known as microbial mats and stromatolites. Due to their long evolutionary history and abundance on modern Earth, research on the biological, chemical and geological processes of stromatolite formation has provided important insights into the field of astrobiology. Many of these microbialite-containing ecosystems have been used as models for astrobiology, and NASA mission analogs including Shark Bay, Pavilion and Kelly Lakes. Modern microbialites represent natural laboratories to study primordial ecosystems and provide proxies for how life could evolve on other planets. However, few viral metagenomic studies (i.e., viromes) have been conducted in microbialites, which are not only an important part of the community but also mirror its biodiversity. This book focuses on particularly interesting sites such as Andean lake microbialites, a proxy of early life since they are characterized by very high UV light, while Alchichica and Bacalar lakes are characterized by high-salt and oligotrophic waters that nurture stromatolites. However, it is only the oasis of Cuatro Cienegas Basin in Mexico that stored past life in its marine sediments of the Sierra de San Marcos. This particular Sierra has a magmatic pouch that moves the deep aquifer to the surface in a cycle of sun drenched life and back to the depths of the magmatic life in an ancient cycle that now is broken by the overexploitation of the surface water as well as the deep aquifer in order to irrigate alfalfa in the desert. The anthropocene, the era of human folly, is killing this unique time machine and with it the memory of the planet.

Discover the successful marketing strategies of programs which have extended the resources of a university to its community. Marketing University Outreach Programs covers all aspects of continuing education program construction and the marketing process for positioning the university into the public. This book begins to eradicate academicians' fears of marketing by showing them a contemporary marketing plan using terminology and examples familiar to them. Seventeen contributors--professors, administrators, and outreach professionals--comprehensively describe the strategies being successfully used to extend the resources of a university to its community through programs of extension, public service, and continuing education. Although many existing models of the education process contain parallels to elements in a generic marketing process, education is not viewed as a consumer product. Even educators may not view themselves as marketers involved in a marketing process. This attitude can place barriers between understanding the marketing process and how it relates to education.Marketing University Outreach Programs helps educators overcome these potential barriers; it explains marketing as a comprehensive process using terminology and examples which university extension and education professionals will find familiar and understandable. Application-oriented, it cites numerous examples of how the marketing process can be put to use immediately. Each chapter explores in-depth a separate segment of the marketing process involved in public university outreach programs: issue-based versus discipline-based programs program delivery and delivery technology funding outreach programs comprehensive promotional strategy customer service long-range planning marketing research information resources future trends model programs This book is of value to the faculty of universities, specifically those in the disciplines with a mandate for professional renewal or recertification (engineering, medicine, education); faculty and professional staff in divisions of continuing education; program leadership in cooperative extension organizations (as well as those in other identifiable university extension units); and faculty affiliated with applied research centers.Members of professional associations focused on higher education outreach can also successfully apply these strategies.

What world has been constructed for dancing through the use of the term 'world dance'? What kinds of worlds do we as scholars create for a given dance when we undertake to describe and analyze it? This book endeavours to make new epistemological space for the analysis of the world's dance by offering a variety of new analytic approaches.

This literary biographical study examines the life and works of the mid-Victorian woman novelist, Elizabeth Gaskell, whose popularity is now well established. It places her writing in the context of her attitudes towards creative production, her relationship with publishers, and her literary friendships, as well as examining those events of her life which fed into her work. It pays particular attention to the ways in which she sought to reconcile the conflicting demands made upon her, as woman and as artist.

The second title in the electrifying YA techno-thriller series by acclaimed author and songwriter, Amy S. Foster.

For three years, teenage super soldier Ryn Whittaker served as a Citadel, guarding the Battle Ground Rift site – one of fourteen mysterious and unpredictable tears in the fabric of the universe that serve as doorways to alternate Earths. But everything changed when Ezra Massad came tumbling out of The Rift. Together, Ryn and Ezra began to unravel the mysteries of the Allied Rift Coalition. And what they discovered started a civil war.

Now, with the base in chaos, Ezra is accidentally pushed through The Rift, taking with him a stolen laptop and the valuable secrets it holds. Ryn has no choice but to follow. From a world where Rome never fell to a world where she was never even born, Ryn must fight her way through alternative realities to unlock the mystery of what she is and take back control of her future in this action-packed second instalment of The Rift Uprising trilogy.