Collection of eight action films produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and starring some of Hollywood's biggest stars, including Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Bruce Willis, Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie.

The Rock (1996)
The safety of San Francisco hangs in the balance when General Francis X. Hummel and his renegade squad of US Marines take over the abandoned Alcatraz prison and threaten to launch a poison gas attack on the city if their demands are not met. The FBI's response is to call in Stanley Goodspeed, a nerdy weapons expert, and John Patrick Mason, a former SAS man who has been in jail for the last 30 years, and send them together into the prison complex. Can this unlikely pairing prevent mass murder?

Armageddon (1998)
Planet Earth comes under threat from an asteroid the size of Texas. NASA's attempt to avert global catastrophe involves sending a motley crew of oil drillers, led by Harry Stamper, into space, where they will drop a nuclear bomb into the asteroid's core. Amongst Stamper's team is A.J., the headstrong suitor of his daughter, who waits on Earth alongside NASA chief Dan Truman for news of the mission's success.

Con Air (1997)
Former Army Ranger Cameron Poe is returning home on parole to his wife and child after serving eight years for manslaughter. The plane he is flying on is a special convict-only transport aircraft filled with some of the meanest and deadliest villains of them all. Once in the air the plane is hijacked by convict Cyrus 'The Virus' Grissom, who gets rid of the crew of prison guards at the first scheduled stop, picking up more convicts as he does so. But US Marshal Vince Larkin is already on his trail. Poe does his best to stop Grissom from escaping with the group of convicts, and just to complicate matters further his diabetic cellmate reveals that he will die if he does not receive his next insulin injection within two hours.

Enemy of the State (1998)
The National Security Agency is a covert organisation whose secret activities are protected by a state-of-the-art surveillance network operated by a team of first-rank techno-boffins. When a videotape proving their involvement in a recent political assassination falls into the hands of Washington DA Robert Clayton Dean, the agency do everything they can to encourage Dean's silence. But Dean is determined to reveal the truth, and teaming up with veteran anti-establishment surveillance expert Edward Lyle, he decides to play the government spies at their own game.

Crimson Tide (1995)
Combat veteran Frank Ramsey and his second-in-command Ron Hunter are the chief officers on board US nuclear submarine USS Alabama. They are heading for Russia, ready to intervene in an escalating crisis which could result in the outbreak of World War III. When they then receive orders to launch their missiles, Ramsay and Hunter clash over the validity of the command and mutiny ensues.

Deja Vu (2006)
When a ferry filled with crewmen from the USS Nimitz and their families is blown up in New Orleans, Federal Agent Doug Carlin is brought in to help with the investigation. He becomes attached to an experimental FBI surveillance unit that uses spacefolding technology to look back a little over four days into the past. While tracking down the bomber Carlin gets an idea in his head: could they use the device to actually travel back in time and not only prevent the bombing but also the murder of a local woman whose truck was used in the atrocity?

Gone In 60 Seconds (2000)
Legendary car thief Randall 'Memphis' Raines is forced to come out of retirement when his brother Kip ends up in debt to a ruthless mobster. Charged with stealing fifty cars in three days, Randall sets about reassembling his old team - including former lover Sara 'Sway' Wayland, mechanic Otto Halliwell and the silent but strong Toby - but faces further challenges in the form of rival car thief Donny and local detective Roland Castlebeck, who would love to put Randall behind bars once and for all.

Pearl Harbor (2001)
Rafe McCawley is a gung-ho US pilot whose determination to fly against the enemy leads him to Europe and active service in the Battle of Britain. His girlfriend Evelyn is left waiting at the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii, and before long tragedy strikes, with the news reaching Evelyn that Rafe has flown off to the great aircraft hanger in the sky. Heartbroken, she is comforted by Rafe's best friend Danny, and romance soon blooms between them. Meanwhile, the Japanese are preparing their forces for the attack which will trigger the US entry into World War II.

A seat at the anchor desk of the most-watched morning show. Recognized by millions across the country, thanks in part to her flawless blond highlights and Botox-smoothed skin. An adoring husband and a Princeton-bound daughter. Peyton is that woman. She has it all. Until . . . Skye, her sister, is a stay-at-home mom living in a glitzy suburb of New York. She has degrees from all the right schools and can helicopter-parent with the best of them. But Skye is different from the rest. She's looking for something real and dreams of a life beyond the PTA and pickup. Until . . . Max, Peyton's bright and quirky seventeen-year-old daughter, is poised to kiss her fancy private school goodbye and head off to pursue her dreams in film. She's waited her entire life for this opportunity. Until . . . One little lie. That's all it takes. For the illusions to crack. For resentments to surface. Suddenly the grass doesn't look so green. And they're left wondering: will they have what it takes to survive the truth?

With brand-new scenes, "The New York Times "bestseller and sequel you've been waiting for--the follow-up to the #1 "New York Times "bestseller, "The Devil Wears Prada"
Almost a decade has passed since Andy Sachs quit the job "a million girls would die for" working for Miranda Priestly at "Runway" magazine--a dream that turned out to be a nightmare. Andy and Emily, her former nemesis and co-assistant, have since joined forces to start a high end bridal magazine, "The Plunge," which has quickly become required reading for the young and stylish. Now they get to call all the shots: Andy writes and travels to her heart's content; Emily plans parties and secures advertising like a seasoned pro. Even better, Andy has met the love of her life. Max Harrison, scion of a storied media family, is confident, successful, and drop-dead gorgeous. Their wedding will be splashed across all the society pages as their friends and family gather to toast the glowing couple. Andy Sachs is on top of the world. But karma's a bitch. The morning of her wedding, Andy can't shake the past. And when she discovers a secret letter with crushing implications, her wedding-day jitters turn to cold dread. Andy realizes that nothing--not her husband, nor her beloved career--is as it seems. She never suspected that her efforts to build a bright new life would lead her back to the darkness she barely escaped ten years ago--and directly into the path of the devil herself...Featuring all new scenes with the villainess we love to hate (hate to love?), Miranda Priestly, "Revenge Wears Prada" in paperback is another publishing event

Brooke loved reading the dishy celebrity gossip rag "Last Night." That is, until her marriage became a weekly headline.
Brooke was drawn to the soulful, enigmatic Julian Alter the very first time she heard him perform "Hallelujah" at a dark East Village dive bar.
Now five years married, Brooke balances two jobs--as a nutritionist at NYU Hospital and as a consultant to an Upper East Side girls' school, where privilege gone wrong and disordered eating run rampant--in order to help support her husband's dream of making it in the music world.
Things are looking up when after years of playing Manhattan clubs and toiling as an A&R intern, Julian finally gets signed by Sony. Although no one's promising that the album will ever hit the airwaves, Julian is still dedicated to logging in long hours at the recording studio. All that changes after Julian is asked to perform on the "Tonight Show "with Jay Leno--and is catapulted to stardom, literally overnight. Amazing opportunities begin popping up almost daily--a new designer wardrobe, a tour with Maroon 5, even a Grammy performance.
At first the newfound fame is fun--who wouldn't want to stay at the Chateau Marmont or visit the set of one of television's hottest shows? Yet it seems that Brooke's sweet husband--the man who can't handle hot showers and wears socks to bed--is increasingly absent, even on those rare nights they're home together. When rumors about Brooke and Julian swirl in the tabloid magazines, she begins to question the truth of her marriage and is forced to finally come to terms with what she thinks she wants--and what she actually needs.

Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann's contributions to chemistry are well known. Less well known, however, is that over a career that spans nearly fifty years, Hoffmann has thought and written extensively about a wide variety of other topics, such as chemistry's relationship to philosophy, literature, and the arts, including the nature of chemical reasoning, the role of symbolism and writing in science, and the relationship between art and craft and science. In Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry, Jeffrey Kovac and Michael Weisberg bring together twenty-eight of Hoffmann's most important essays. Gathered here are Hoffmann's most philosophically significant and interesting essays and lectures, many of which are not widely accessible. In essays such as "Why Buy That Theory," "Nearly Circular Reasoning," "How Should Chemists Think," "The Metaphor, Unchained," "Art in Science," and "Molecular Beauty," we find the mature reflections of one of America's leading scientists. Organized under the general headings of Chemical Reasoning and Explanation, Writing and Communicating, Art and Science, Education, and Ethics, these stimulating essays provide invaluable insight into the teaching and practice of science.

In this morality story and captivating fairy tale, a boy, who wants to be rich, faces moral dilemmas and learns making choices. Written by the WeisbergZ and beautifully illustrated by an experienced children's book artist Ron Chironna, this large format book is specifically designed for family reading.

..".a powerful story "

Rabbi Binyamin Krauss, Principal of SAR Academy

..".an excellent story... a treasure."

Diana Schutt, Elementary Education specialist, Director of Admissions of Solomon Schechter School of Westchester

Descartes once argued that, with sufficient effort and skill, a single scientist could uncover fundamental truths about our world. Contemporary science proves the limits of this claim. From synthesizing the human genome to predicting the effects of climate change, some current scientific research requires the collaboration of hundreds (if not thousands) of scientists with various specializations. Additionally, the majority of published scientific research is now co-authored, including more than 80% of articles in the natural sciences, meaning small collaborative teams have become the norm in science. This volume is the first to address critical philosophical questions regarding how collective scientific research could be organized differently and how it should be organized. For example, should scientists be required to share knowledge with competing research teams? How can universities and grant-giving institutions promote successful collaborations? When hundreds of researchers contribute to a discovery, how should credit be assigned - and can minorities expect a fair share? When collaborative work contains significant errors or fraudulent data, who deserves blame? In this collection of essays, leading philosophers of science address these critical questions, among others. Their work extends current philosophical research on the social structure of science and contributes to the growing, interdisciplinary field of social epistemology. The volume's strength lies in the diversity of its authors' methodologies. Employing detailed case studies of scientific practice, mathematical models of scientific communities, and rigorous conceptual analysis, contributors to this volume study scientific groups of all kinds, including small labs, peer-review boards, and large international collaborations like those in climate science and particle physics.

Perfect marriages. Perfect neighbours. Perfect lies. Everyone is guarding a secret in this picture-perfect town. When Karolina Hartwell is arrested driving her son home, the headlines don't tell the full story. It seems nothing will stand in the way of her husband Graham's political ambition - not even his wife. Miriam Kagan is convinced her husband Paul is hiding something. But if she digs too deeply, she's afraid of what might tumble out of the closet. Emily Charlton is new to Greenwich, but she soon discovers this is a small town built on big lies. And sometimes it takes an outsider to draw them out . . . *Published in the USA as When Life Gives You Lululemons* Everyone is talking about The Wives: 'Wildly entertaining' Evening Standard 'Feisty, funny and dishes up glamour and scandal in spades. Just what I want for my poolside read', Adele Parks for Glamour 'Lauren Weisberger has the sharpest, wittiest eye . . . I love her books' Sunday Times bestseller Jenny Colgan 'Expect gossip, glamour and lashings of female solidarity' Metro 'Entertaining, sexy and laugh-out-loud funny' Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen, New York Times bestselling authors of The Wife Between Us

In the 1950s, John Reber convinced many Californians that the best way to solve the state's water shortage problem was to dam up the San Francisco Bay. Against massive political pressure, Reber's opponents persuaded lawmakers that doing so would lead to disaster. They did this not by empirical measurement alone, but also through the construction of a model. Simulation and Similarity explains why this was a good strategy while simultaneously providing an account of modeling and idealization in modern scientific practice. Michael Weisberg focuses on concrete, mathematical, and computational models in his consideration of the nature of models, the practice of modeling, and nature of the relationship between models and real-world phenomena.
In addition to a careful analysis of physical, computational, and mathematical models, Simulation and Similarity offers a novel account of the model/world relationship. Breaking with the dominant tradition, which favors the analysis of this relation through logical notions such as isomorphism, Weisberg instead presents a similarity-based account called weighted feature matching. This account is developed with an eye to understanding how modeling is actually practiced. Consequently, it takes into account the ways in which scientists' theoretical goals shape both the applications and the analyses of their models.

How far would you go to change your life in a year?

Emmy finds herself single for the first time in years. She vows to find a man on every continent for some pure no-strings-attached fun. Adriana is stunning and can have any man she desires.Yet she wants an eligible bachelor who'll slip a five-carat Harry Winston diamond on her finger. Leigh has a doting boyfriend that most girls would kill for. But when literary bad boy Jesse Chapman asks to work with her, she just can't refuse. Knocking back raspberry mojitos one night, the three friends make a pact - to change one thing in their lives by the end of the year. Game On.

A sharp, witty and hugely entertaining debut novel, The Devil Wears Prada is The Nanny Diaries set in the world of high fashion. Welcome to the dollhouse, baby! When Andrea first sets foot in the plush Manhattan offices of Runway she knows nothing. She's never heard of the world's most fashionable magazine, or its feared and fawned-over editor, Miranda Priestly. But she's going to be Miranda's assistant, a job millions of girls would die for. A year later, she knows altogether too much: That it's a sacking offence to wear anything lower than a three-inch heel to work. But that there's always a fresh pair of Manolos for you in the accessories cupboard. That Miranda believes Hermes scarves are disposable, and you must keep a life-time supply on hand at all times. That eight stone is fat. That you can charge cars, manicures, anything at all to the Runway account, but you must never, ever, leave your desk, or let Miranda's coffee get cold. And that at 3 a.m. on a Sunday, when your boyfriend's dumping you because you're always at work, and your best friend's just been arrested, if Miranda phones, you jump. Most of all, Andrea knows that Miranda is a monster who makes Cruella de Vil look like a fluffy bunny. But also that this is her big break, and it's going to be worth it in the end. Isn't it?

An exuberant, radical style, Art Nouveau blithely trampled many of the Victorian Age's orthodoxies of art and design. Exploding age-old strictures with its fanciful approach to furniture, graphic arts, jewellery, architecture and more, Art Nouveau also embraced new technologies and incorporated foreign stylistic flourishes. It was also unabashedly luxurious and sensual. The Triumph of Nature: Art Nouveau from the Chrysler Museum of Art brings together approximately 120 of the finest Art Nouveau treasures from the uncommonly rich holdings of the Chrysler Museum of Art, drawing primarily from the gifts of Walter P. and Jean Chrysler, whose homes were once the havens for these opulent treasures. Designing for a range of clients and settings including domestic interiors, innovative artists such as de Feure, Majorelle, and Galle fashioned their eclectic works to play off each other in harmonious visual arrangements, conceiving of Art Nouveau as an enveloping style. This stunningly illustrated comprehensive volume gathers a profusion of Art Nouveau works and accessories-furniture, paintings, sculpture, mosaics, books, posters, prints, lamps, glass, and other stunning objets d'art- all of them originally designed and coordinated to complement each other in elaborate ensembles. AUTHORS: Lloyd DeWitt is chief curator and Irene Leache Curator of European Art, Chrysler Museum of Art. Carolyn S. Needell is Barry Curator of Glass, Chrysler Museum of Art. Gabriel P. Weisberg is a leading scholar on Art Nouveau, and on nineteenth-century French art. SELLING POINTS: . Features over 150 beautiful and finely crafted examples of Art Nouveau furniture, decorative arts, and graphic arts, all highlights from a remarkable collection . Collection is exceptional for its quality and breadth . All the major figures of this pivotal artistic movement that thrived from the 1880sthrough the First World War are well represented including Hector Guimard, Emile Galle, Louis Majorelle, Alphonse Mucha and many others 197 colour illustrations

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications DIRECTIONS IN ROBUST STATISTICS AND DIAGNOSTICS is based on the proceedings of the first four weeks of the six week IMA 1989 summer program "Robustness, Diagnostics, Computing and Graphics in Statistics." An important objective of the organizers was to draw a broad set of statisticians working in robustness or diagnostics into collaboration on the challenging problems in these areas, particularly on the interface between them. We thank the organizers of the robustness and diagnostics program Noel Cressie, Thomas P. Hettmansperger, Peter J. Huber, R. Douglas Martin, and especially Werner Stahel and Sanford Weisberg who edited the proceedings. A vner Friedman Willard Miller, Jr. PREFACE Central themes of all statistics are estimation, prediction, and making decisions under uncertainty. A standard approach to these goals is through parametric mod elling. Parametric models can give a problem sufficient structure to allow standard, well understood paradigms to be applied to make the required inferences. If, how ever, the parametric model is not completely correct, then the standard inferential methods may not give reasonable answers. In the last quarter century, particularly with the advent of readily available computing, more attention has been paid to the problem of inference when the parametric model used is not correctly specified."

The hotly-anticipated sequel to The Devil Wears Prada - the million copy bestseller that took the world by storm Available in gorgeous glossy yellow or ever-fashionable black Everything's in place for the season's hottest launch: Tall latte (with two raw sugars)? Check. Gucci trench (draped over desk)? Check. Outrageous, unreasonable demands? Check. Andy has just turned thirty and is an incredibly successful magazine editor, working closely with her best friend Emily, another Runway survivor. She's about to get married - life's on track and she's been careful to stay clear of Miranda Priestly, her dreadful first boss. But Andy's luck is running out. Miranda Priestly isn't the kind of woman who hides in the background. She's back... and more devilish than ever.

Flexibility is usually seen as a virtue in today's world. Even the dictionary seems to dislike those who stick too hard to their own positions. The thesaurus links "intransigence" to a whole host of words signifying a distaste for loyalty to fixed positions: intractable, stubborn, Pharisaic, close-minded, and stiff-necked, to name a few. In this short and provocative book, constitutional law professor Richard H. Weisberg asks us to reexamine our collective cultural bias toward flexibility, open-mindedness, and compromise. He argues that flexibility has not fared well over the course of history. Indeed, emergencies both real and imagined have led people to betray their soundest traditions. Weisberg explores the rise of flexibility, which he traces not only to the Enlightenment but further back to early Christian reinterpretation of Jewish sacred texts. He illustrates his argument with historical examples from Vichy France and the occupation of the British Channel Islands during World War II as well as post-9/11 betrayals of sound American traditions against torture, eavesdropping, unlimited detention, and drone killings. Despite the damage wrought by Western society's incautious embrace of flexibility over the past two millennia, Weisberg does not make the case for unthinking rigidity. Rather, he argues that a willingness to embrace intransigence allows us to recognize that we have beliefs worth holding on to - without compromise.

America Afire is the powerful story of the election of 1800, arguably the most important election in America's history and certainly one of the most hotly disputed. Former allies Adams and Jefferson, president versus vice president, Federalist versus Republican, squared off in a vicious contest that resulted in broken friendships, scandals, riots, slander, and jailings in the fourth presidential election under the Constitution.

Explanatory Optimism about the Hard Problem of Consciousness argues that despite the worries of explanatory pessimists, consciousness can be fully explained in “easy” scientific terms. The widespread intuition that consciousness poses a hard problem is plausibly based on how consciousness appears to us in first-person access. The book offers a debunking argument to undercut the justificatory link between the first-person appearances and our hard problem intuitions. The key step in the debunking argument involves the development and defense of an empirical model of first-person access: Automated Compression Theory (ACT). ACT holds that first-person access to consciousness is accomplished by automated accessing of compressed sensory information. Because of the distorting nature of this compressed access, it seems to subjects that consciousness possesses “exceptional” properties—properties leading to the hard problem—even though no such properties are present. If there are no exceptional properties to explain, then an explanation in easy terms can fully account for conscious experience. The book presents a range of empirical evidence for ACT and concludes that the burden of proof is now on the pessimists to show why we shouldn’t be optimistic about explaining consciousness.

What could possibly go wrong in a wealthy matriarch’s country home when her dilettante son, his restless wife, and his widowed brother live there together? Strong Passions, set in the vanished world of Edith Wharton’s “Old New York,” recounts the true story of a tumultuous marriage. In 1862, Mary Strong stunned her husband, Peter, by confessing to an affair with his brother. Peter sued Mary for divorce for adultery, but not before she accused him of being unfaithful and kidnapped their child. Social history at its most intimate, Barbara Weisberg portrays a family and country in turmoil as they faced conflicts over women’s changing roles, men’s financial power over wives, and male custody of children. She presents the chaotic courtroom and panoply of witnesses who provided contradictory and often-salacious testimony. Then she asks us to be the jury, deciding each spouse’s guilt and the possibility of a just resolution.

Welcome to the dollouse, baby!

When Andrea first sets foot in the plush Manhattan offices of Runway she knows nothing.

She's never heard of the world's most fashionable magazine, or its feared and fawned-over editor, Miranda Priestly. But she's going to be Miranda's assistant, a job millions of girls would die for.

A year later, she knows altogether too much:

That it's a sacking offence to wear anything lower than a three-inch heel to work. But that there's always a fresh pair of Manolos for you in the accessories cupboard.

That Miranda believes Hermes scarves are disposable, and you must keep a life-time supply on hand at all times.

That eight stone is fat.

That you can charge cars, manicures, anything at all to the Runway account, but you must never, ever, leave your desk, or let Miranda's coffee get cold.

And that at 3 a.m. on a Sunday, when your boyfriend's dumping you because you're always at work, and your best friend's just been arrested, if Miranda phones, you jump.

Most of all, Andrea knows that Miranda is a monster who makes Cruella de Vil look like a fluffy bunny. But also that this is her big break, and it's going to be worth it in the end.

Isn't it?

A one-of-a-kind resource on identifying and dealing with bias in statistical research on causal effects

Do cell phones cause cancer? Can a new curriculum increase student achievement? Determining what the real causes of such problems are, and how powerful their effects may be, are central issues in research across various fields of study. Some researchers are highly skeptical of drawing causal conclusions except in tightly controlled randomized experiments, while others discount the threats posed by different sources of bias, even in less rigorous observational studies. Bias and Causation presents a complete treatment of the subject, organizing and clarifying the diverse types of biases into a conceptual framework. The book treats various sources of bias in comparative studies--both randomized and observational--and offers guidance on how they should be addressed by researchers.

Utilizing a relatively simple mathematical approach, the author develops a theory of bias that outlines the essential nature of the problem and identifies the various sources of bias that are encountered in modern research. The book begins with an introduction to the study of causal inference and the related concepts and terminology. Next, an overview is provided of the methodological issues at the core of the difficulties posed by bias. Subsequent chapters explain the concepts of selection bias, confounding, intermediate causal factors, and information bias along with the distortion of a causal effect that can result when the exposure and/or the outcome is measured with error. The book concludes with a new classification of twenty general sources of bias and practical advice on how mathematical modeling and expert judgment can be combined to achieve the most credible causal conclusions.

Throughout the book, examples from the fields of medicine, public policy, and education are incorporated into the presentation of various topics. In addition, six detailed case studies illustrate concrete examples of the significance of biases in everyday research.

Requiring only a basic understanding of statistics and probability theory, Bias and Causation is an excellent supplement for courses on research methods and applied statistics at the upper-undergraduate and graduate level. It is also a valuable reference for practicing researchers and methodologists in various fields of study who work with statistical data.

This book was selected as the 2011 Ziegel Prize Winner in Technometrics for the best book reviewed by the journal.

It is also the winner of the 2010 PROSE Award for Mathematics from The American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor and Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A fascinating story of spirits and conjurors, skeptics and converts in the second half of nineteenth century America viewed through the lives of Kate and Maggie Fox, the sisters whose purported communication with the dead gave rise to the Spiritualism movement - and whose recanting forty years later is still shrouded in mystery.

In March of 1848, Kate and Maggie Fox - sisters aged 11 and 14 - anxiously reported to a neighbor that they had been hearing strange, unidentified sounds in their house. From a sequence of knocks and rattles translated by the young girls as a "voice from beyond," the Modern Spiritualism movement was born.

"Talking to the Dead" follows the fascinating story of the two girls who were catapulted into an odd limelight after communicating with spirits that March night. Within a few years, tens of thousands of Americans were flocking to seances. An international movement followed. Yet thirty years after those first knocks, the sisters shocked the country by denying they had ever contacted spirits. Shortly after, the sisters once again changed their story and reaffirmed their belief in the spirit world. Weisberg traces not only the lives of the Fox sisters and their family (including their mysterious Svengali-like sister Leah) but also the social, religious, economic and political climates that provided the breeding ground for the movement. While this is a thorough, compelling overview of a potent time in US history, it is also an incredible ghost story.

An entertaining read - a story of spirits and conjurors, skeptics and converts - "Talking to the Dead" is full of emotion and surprise. Yet it will also provoke questions that were being asked in the 19thcentury, and are still being asked today - how do we know what we know, and how secure are we in our knowledge?