South Africa has produced two leaders who achieved global recognition and renown in their respective eras: Jan Christiaan Smuts (Prime Minister, 1919-24 and 1939-48) and Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (President, 1994-99). The former was much celebrated for playing a significant role in reconstructing international architecture after both world wars; the latter remains globally admired for his leading part in drawing South Africa back from racial war and becoming a democracy. As a result, both have attracted multiple biographies. Today, however, whereas Mandela remains a much-admired global icon, Smuts’ reputation is much diminished, with contemporary historians citing his racism and role in constructing the foundations of apartheid South Africa.

In this controversial book, Roger Southall provides a re-evaluation of Smuts’ hugely contradictory career by proposing fascinating parallels with the life and political trajectory of Mandela. Both came to maturity as political leaders as freedom fighters – Smuts against the British and Mandela against the apartheid regime. Both played a pre-eminent in founding a new South Africa, the first made for whites at Union in 1910 and the second for all South Africans in 1994. Both aspired to be nation-builders, but while Smuts’ hoped-for South African nation was white, Mandela aspired to bring all of South Africa’s people together. Both came to stride on the international stage, albeit in very different ways and for various reasons.

Smuts’ career failed, and he was ejected from office. Mandela retired gracefully from office and continued to be lauded for his well-earned retirement, yet South Africa’s contemporary travails reveal his hopes and policies as unfulfilled. This book makes the case that we cannot fully understand Mandela without first understanding Smuts and how South Africa continues to struggle with the legacy he left behind.

South Africa’s general election of 2024 saw the African National Congress losing its majority at the national level for the first time since the arrival of democracy in 1994. To maintain its rule, President Cyril Ramaphosa led his party into a Government of National Unity (GNU) centered around a hitherto unlikely coalition with the opposition Democratic Alliance. Election 2024, South Africa: Countdown to Coalition presents the first comprehensive analysis of this historic process.

It outlines the extensive social and economic crisis that preceded the election; provides detailed analyses of the election campaigns of the political parties; highlights the dramatic rise Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe Party; places the GNU against the recent experiences of coalition formation at provincial and local level; offers comprehensive summaries of voter participation and both the national and provincial results; and discusses prospects for the GNU’s survival and its possible long-term consequences.

Written in a highly accessible style, Election 2024, South Africa is an indispensable resource for all those wanting to understand South Africa’s contemporary politics.

The galaxy's most terrifying creatures are coming for Earth!

Years after the first two Aliens films, a Xenomorph attack in space leads the Colonial Marines to take action. Soon, the badly scarred Hicks and the now-grown Newt find themselves swept up in a dangerous mission to locate and destroy the creatures' homeworld! But when Earth itself is overrun by a Xenomorph outbreak, Hicks and Newt must join a renegade group fighting to reclaim the planet.

Can an obsessed military man train Aliens to wipe out their own kind? And can an old friend help Hicks and Newt turn the tide - by capturing an Alien Queen Mother? Plus: An outer-space treasure hunt becomes a battle for survival when Aliens attack!

Episode 4: A New Hope
The Jedi Knights have been exterminated and the Empire rules the galaxy with an iron fist. A small group of Rebels have dared to fight back by stealing the secret plans to the Empire's mightiest woman, the Death Star battle station. The Emperor's most trusted servant, Darth Vader, must find the plans, and locate the hidden Rebel base. Princess Leia, a captive Rebel leader, sends out a distress signal that is intercepted by a simple farm boy, Luke Skywalker. Seizing his destiny, Luke takes up the challenge to recuse the princess and help the Rebellion overthrow the Empire, along with such unforgettable allies as the wise Obi-Wan Kenobi, the cocky Han Solo, the loyal Chewbacca, and the droids R2-D2 and C3PO.

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back
It is a dark time for the Rebellion. After a devastating attack on their ice base on the frozen planet of Hoth, the Rebels are scattered by Imperial pursuit. Luke Skywalker seeks out the mysterious Jedi Master Yoda in the swamps of Dagobah, while Han Solo and Princess Leia outrun the Imperial fleet to the beautiful Cloud City of Bespin. In an attempt to convert Luke to the dark side, the evil Darth Vader lures young Skywalker into a trap. In the midst of a fierce lightsaber duel with the Sith Lord, Luke faces a terrible truth about the Skywalker legacy.

Episode 6: Return Of The Jedi
In the spectacular final chapter of the Star Wars saga, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia must travel to Tatooine to free Han Solo by infiltrating the wretched stronghold of Jabba the Hutt, the galaxy's most loathsome gangster. Reunited, the Rebels team up with tribes of Ewoks to combat the Imperial forces on the forest moon of Endor. Meanwhile the Emperor and Darth Vader conspire to turn Luke to the dark side, and young Skywalker is determined to rekindle the spirit of the Jedi within his father.

Happy Baby is a wonderful new gift book for babies by Priddy Books. This shaped board book is a wonderful gift for any baby shower or to give to a newborn baby. It has been designed with our very first learners in mind, as each page has a ribbon attached with a different pattern or tactile feel which babies can explore as they interact with the book. There are also three shaped animal tabs which will also engage young children as they turn the pages. This book is focussed on different types of play, from toys to playing outside and doing arts and crafts together. The soft retro illustrations include sweet vignettes of babies and labelled images of what is in the scene to encourage early speaking skills, word-picture recognition as well as introducing babies to the world around them. There is also gentle rhyming text written from a child’s perspective which is perfect for reading aloud to young children: I can shake my rattle, bang my drum, and stack up blocks one by one! There is so much for babies and parents to explore together as they enjoy this adorable baby book.

This big, sturdy board book for babies and toddlers features more than 100 pictures to look at and essential first words to learn. Organised into topics including food, clothes, things that go and more, the bold, colourful pages will hold your child's attention, and the easy-to-read labels form the basis of word and picture association. A great book to build your child's vocabulary, and a perfect addition to any first learning bookshelf.

Babies will love meeting the adorable animals and exploring the touch-and-feel pages in Baby Animals, the next title publishing into the successful Baby Touch & Feel series by Priddy Books. Filled with cute baby animals, from kittens and puppies, to bunnies and more, this multi-sensory shaped board book will stimulate babies' senses as they explore the pages. Featuring a different touch and feel texture on each spread, the gentle rhyming text and vibrant photographic images of animals and babies help to develop picture recognition.

-Soft-to-touch, padded board books which little hands will love to hold-Each book is packed with over 100 first words to learn and pictures to look at-Bright, vibrant photographs capture children's interest-Ideal first books for babies and toddlers which build vocabulary and help develop word and picture association

Priddy Learning: My First ABC is an exciting learning format that features engaging wheels for children to turn as they learn. With two wheels to turn on every page, this sturdy board book has been designed to encourage children to interact with the activities as they learn their abc. Children can turn the wheels to find the correct picture that matches with the starting letter. The bright pictures and simple labels build early vocabulary, while the wheels help to develop hand-eye coordination.

No further information has been provided for this title.

Create retro neon artwork that's truly electric with this funky rock painting kit!

Let author and artist Amanda Rogers guide you through creating 8 glowing rock painting projects that perfectly capture the style and nostalgia of retro neon lights and lettering.

Featuring a 24-page book plus rocks, paints, brushes and dotting tools, you'll be creating your own electrifying rock art to keep or share in no time!

In an increasingly globalised world, despite reductions in costs and time, transportation has become even more important as a facilitator of economic and human interaction; this is reflected in technical advances in transportation systems, increasing interest in how transportation interacts with society and the need to provide novel approaches to understanding its impacts. This has become particularly acute with the impact that Covid-19 has had on transportation across the world, at local, national and international levels. Encyclopedia of Transportation, Seven Volume Set - containing almost 600 articles - brings a cross-cutting and integrated approach to all aspects of transportation from a variety of interdisciplinary fields including engineering, operations research, economics, geography and sociology in order to understand the changes taking place. Emphasising the interaction between these different aspects of research, it offers new solutions to modern-day problems related to transportation. Each of its nine sections is based around familiar themes, but brings together the views of experts from different disciplinary perspectives. Each section is edited by a subject expert who has commissioned articles from a range of authors representing different disciplines, different parts of the world and different social perspectives. The nine sections are structured around the following themes: Transport Modes; Freight Transport and Logistics; Transport Safety and Security; Transport Economics; Traffic Management; Transport Modelling and Data Management; Transport Policy and Planning; Transport Psychology; Sustainability and Health Issues in Transportation. Some articles provide a technical introduction to a topic whilst others provide a bridge between topics or a more future-oriented view of new research areas or challenges. The end result is a reference work that offers researchers and practitioners new approaches, new ways of thinking and novel solutions to problems. All-encompassing and expertly authored, this outstanding reference work will be essential reading for all students and researchers interested in transportation and its global impact in what is a very uncertain world.

Soothe your baby ready for bedtime with Sleepy Baby Cloth Book from Priddy Books. Focusing on three stages of getting ready for bed such as bath time, story time and going to sleep, this book is designed to be read to babies as part of their bedtime or naptime routine. Each spread features an illustrated vignette of a baby with labelled images on the other page to introduce new vocabulary, encourage early speaking skills and word-picture association. This book has soft padded cloth pages which are easy to hold and turn pages. Each spread also includes a different texture for babies to touch and feel. There are four ribbons attached to the side of the cloth book with different patterns and tactiles for added sensory exploration. The encouraging text is perfect for reading out loud together as part of story time. Publishing into the same series as Happy Baby, a tabbed board book publishing in October 2023.

The clinical laboratory plays a critical role in the diagnosis and management of endocrine and related metabolic disorders, which are leading causes of morbidity and mortality in children and adults. The Handbook of Diagnostic Endocrinology, Third Edition, provides a ready reference for the evaluation, diagnosis, and monitoring of such disorders. This revision incorporates translational medicine, connecting what clinicians need to know with those in research providing a clinical context to which they can relate their molecular findings. This book solves the needs of clinicians and researchers by bringing together in one book endocrinology at the molecular and clinical levels. As the intricacies of intracellular signaling have become better understood, states of hormone resistance are now increasingly recognized. The most common endocrinopathy in westernized countries, the metabolic syndrome, results, to a large extent, from insulin resistance. The complexity of the circulating forms of various hormones are acknowledged in this revision.

Genetically Modified Plants, Second Edition, provides an updated roadmap and science-based methodology for assessing the safety of genetic modification technologies, as well as risk assessment approaches from regulators across different agroecosystems. This new edition also includes expanded coverage of technologies used in plant improvement, such as RNA-dependent DNA methylation, reverse breeding, agroinfiltration, and gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR and TALENS. This book is an essential resource for anyone interested in crop improvement, including students and researchers, practitioners in regulatory agencies, and policymakers involved in plant biotechnology risk assessment.

This soft cloth book format has been designed to stimulate babies senses with a variety of engaging tactile novelty elements. Babies can learn through play as they shake the rattle, touch the mirror, explore the touch-and-feel elements, and more! The playful handprint artwork and simple text encourage baby to engage with each page to develop their hand-eye coordination.

Materials in a nuclear environment are exposed to extreme conditions of radiation, temperature and/or corrosion, and in many cases the combination of these makes the material behavior very different from conventional materials. This is evident for the four major technological challenges the nuclear technology domain is facing currently: (i) long-term operation of existing Generation II nuclear power plants, (ii) the design of the next generation reactors (Generation IV), (iii) the construction of the ITER fusion reactor in Cadarache (France), (iv) and the intermediate and final disposal of nuclear waste. In order to address these challenges, engineers and designers need to know the properties of a wide variety of materials under these conditions and to understand the underlying processes affecting changes in their behavior, in order to assess their performance and to determine the limits of operation. Comprehensive Nuclear Materials, Second Edition, Seven Volume Set provides broad ranging, validated summaries of all the major topics in the field of nuclear material research for fission as well as fusion reactor systems. Attention is given to the fundamental scientific aspects of nuclear materials: fuel and structural materials for fission reactors, waste materials, and materials for fusion reactors. The articles are written at a level that allows undergraduate students to understand the material, while providing active researchers with a ready reference resource of information. Most of the chapters from the first Edition have been revised and updated and a significant number of new topics are covered in completely new material. During the ten years between the two editions, the challenge for applications of nuclear materials has been significantly impacted by world events, public awareness, and technological innovation. Materials play a key role as enablers of new technologies, and we trust that this new edition of Comprehensive Nuclear Materials has captured the key recent developments.

• Help your young child learn to identify colours, learn first words, and develop their fine motor and problem-solving skills with this fantastic puzzle book.
• With bright artwork and chunky puzzle pieces that are ideal for little hands, Colour Bus is the perfect addition to your young child's first library.
• Each page contains a large jigsaw piece of the a colourful traffic jam of vehicles and these can all be put together to create a large floor puzzle..

Toddlers will love counting from 10 to 1 in Ten Little Lambs, an exciting new numbers book from Priddy Books! Ten little lambs are leaving the farm and going off on an adventure. They zoom around in outer space, rock out on stage at a concert, find buried treasure and much more. But every time they go somewhere new, one lamb gets left behind: Ten daring lambs go out for the day. One felt worried so decided to stay. This casebound board book also includes tactile silicon lambs. One every page there are die-cut shapes for the lambs’ faces to appear through so that every time the child turns the page, there is one less animal to count. The tactile nature of each page encourages children to explore and practice numbers from a young age. This fantastic book is perfect to share together at bedtime as there is so much to spot and look out for in the busy illustrated scenes as well as fun rhyming text to read loud.

This book explores music/sound-image relationships in non-mainstream screen repertoire from the earliest examples of experimental audiovisuality to the most recent forms of expanded and digital technology. It challenges presumptions of visual primacy in experimental cinema and rethinks screen music discourse in light of the aesthetics of non-commercial imperatives. Several themes run through the book, connecting with and significantly enlarging upon current critical discourse surrounding realism and audibility in the fiction film, the role of music in mainstream cinema, and the audiovisual strategies of experimental film. The contributors investigate repertoires and artists from Europe and the USA through the critical lenses of synchronicity and animated sound, interrelations of experimentation in image and sound, audiovisual synchresis and dissonance, experimental soundscape traditions, found-footage film, re-mediation of pre-existent music and sound, popular and queer sound cultures, and a diversity of radical technological, aesthetic, tropes in film media traversing the work of early pioneers such as Walther Ruttmann and Len Lye, through the mid-century innovations of Norman McLaren, Stan Brakhage, Lis Rhodes, Kenneth Anger, Andy Warhol, and studio collectives in Poland, to latter-day experimentalists John Smith and Bill Morrison, as well as the contemporary practices of Vjing.

This issue of the Interventional Cardiology Clinics edited by Jason Rogers covers various approaches, techniques, and therapies for Transcatheter Mitral Value Intervention. Topics include, but are not limited to: Echocardiographic Imaging of the Mitral Valve for Transcatheter Interventions, Use of Computed Tomography to Guide Mitral Interventions, Transseptal Puncture for Mitral Interventions, MitraClip Therapy for Mitral Regurgitation: Primary MR, Coronary Sinus-Based Approach to Mitral Regurgitation, and Transcatheter Mitral Valve Replacement.

Carbon is light-weight, strong, conductive and able to mimic natural materials within the body, making it ideal for many uses within biomedicine. Consequently a great deal of research and funding is being put into this interesting material with a view to increasing the variety of medical applications for which it is suitable. Diamond-based materials for biomedical applications presents readers with the fundamental principles and novel applications of this versatile material.
Part one provides a clear introduction to diamond based materials for medical applications. Functionalization of diamond particles and surfaces is discussed, followed by biotribology and biological behaviour of nanocrystalline diamond coatings, and blood compatibility of diamond-like carbon coatings. Part two then goes on to review biomedical applications of diamond based materials, beginning with nanostructured diamond coatings for orthopaedic applications. Topics explored include ultrananocrystalline diamond for neural and ophthalmological applications, nanodiamonds for drug delivery systems, and diamond nucleation and seeding techniques for tissue regeneration. Finally, the book concludes with a discussion of diamond materials for microfluidic devices.
With its distinguished editors and international team of expert contributors, Diamond-based materials for biomedical applications is an authoritative guide for all materials scientists, researchers, medical practitioners and academics investigating the properties and uses of diamond based materials in the biomedical environment.
Presents the fundamental principles and novel applications of this versatile materialDiscusses the functionalization of diamond particles and surfaces, biotribology and biological behaviour of nanocrystalinediamond coatings and blood compatibility of diamond-like carbon coatingsReviews nanostructured diamond coatings for orthopaedic coatings