Michael Small

"A soul healing experience"..."inspirational" (Dr. Jeanette's Radio Show)"It would make an intriguing movie" (Mary Kenny in 'Catholic Herald')"An engaging, solidly entertaining, and deftly crafted novel" (Midwest Book Review) Wade, a sixty-nine-year-old retired teacher, is desperately searching for meaning to the rest of his life. As he sets off to walk the famous Camino de Santiago de Compostela, he hopes to rekindle his faith in God and come to terms with a dark secret he has kept hidden at the back of his mind for nearly forty years.Although his pilgrim journey of self-discovery, walking 500 miles across northern Spain, is physically demanding enough for a senior citizen, it also brings him face to face with yet more challenges. He encounters enigmatic characters, obsessions, temptations, and emotional conflicts. And when he meets a mysterious old man, Diego, who delivers some cold, hard truths about his life, Wade remains in denial.Wade's pursuit of female company, regardless of Diego's warning, hinders his spiritual progress. But who cares, when Angelina, a fascinating young Swedish woman less than half his age, stumbles into his life?Will Angelina reciprocate his feelings of love?Will Wade continue to live in a way that hampers his personal growth and spiritual development?Will he ever make the psychological breakthrough he needs to move forward with his life? Or will fate step in and open the floodgates for his past to finally catch up with him?Find out in this profound, memorable and inspiring novel which will capture your heart, soul and mind in equal measure.

Explores the emerging subject of epidemic dynamics on complex networks, including theories, methods, and real-world applications Throughout history epidemic diseases have presented a serious threat to human life, and in recent years the spread of infectious diseases such as dengue, malaria, HIV, and SARS has captured global attention; and in the modern technological age, the proliferation of virus attacks on the Internet highlights the emergent need for knowledge about modeling, analysis, and control in epidemic dynamics on complex networks. For advancement of techniques, it has become clear that more fundamental knowledge will be needed in mathematical and numerical context about how epidemic dynamical networks can be modelled, analyzed, and controlled. This book explores recent progress in these topics and looks at issues relating to various epidemic systems. Propagation Dynamics on Complex Networks covers most key topics in the field, and will provide a valuable resource for graduate students and researchers interested in network science and dynamical systems, and related interdisciplinary fields. Key Features: Includes a brief history of mathematical epidemiology and epidemic modeling on complex networks.Explores how information, opinion, and rumor spread via the Internet and social networks.Presents plausible models for propagation of SARS and avian influenza outbreaks, providing a reality check for otherwise abstract mathematical modeling.Considers various infectivity functions, including constant, piecewise-linear, saturated, and nonlinear cases. Examines information transmission on complex networks, and investigates the difference between information and epidemic spreading.

From the spontaneous rapid firing of cortical neurons to the spatial diffusion of disease epidemics, biological systems exhibit rich dynamic behaviour over a vast range of time and space scales. Unifying many of these diverse phenomena, Dynamics of Biological Systems provides the computational and mathematical platform from which to understand the underlying processes of the phenomena.Through an extensive tour of various biological systems, the text introduces computational methods for simulating spatial diffusion processes in excitable media, such as the human heart, as well as mathematical tools for dealing with systems of nonlinear ordinary and partial differential equations, such as neuronal activation and disease diffusion. The mathematical models and computer simulations offer insight into the dynamics of temporal and spatial biological systems, including cardiac pacemakers, artificial electrical defibrillation, pandemics, pattern formation, flocking behaviour, the interaction of autonomous agents, and hierarchical and structured network topologies. Tools from complex systems and complex networks are also presented for dealing with real phenomenological systems.With exercises and projects in each chapter, this classroom-tested text shows students how to apply a variety of mathematical and computational techniques to model and analyze the temporal and spatial phenomena of biological systems. MATLAB® implementations of algorithms and case studies are available on the author’s website.

Musical comedy / 3m, 4f (with doubling.) / Unit set Here is a lighthearted tribute to silent movies and Clara Bow that reinvents her 1927 film about a sassy department store salesclerk who wins an advertising contest held to find the girl with the elusive, thrilling quality know as It. Among those she enchants with sexy charm is the heir to the retail empire that employs her. "Perky ...with a savvy score...Has the heightened melodramatic tone of a silent movie." - New York Times "Flapper flamboyance gives "It' to "Girl'...[This charming] musical with plenty to flaunt ...infuses the ...story with funny, frothy tunes." - New York Daily News

In the early hours of April 22, 1914, American President Woodrow Wilson sent Marines to seize the port of Veracruz in an attempt to alter the course of the Mexican Revolution. As a result, the United States seemed on the brink of war with Mexico. An international uproar ensued. The governments of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile offered to mediate a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Surprisingly, both the United States and Mexico accepted their offer and all parties agreed to meet at an international peace conference in Niagara Falls, Ontario. For Canadians, the conference provided an unexpected spectacle on their doorstep, combining high diplomacy and low intrigue around the gardens and cataracts of Canada's most famous natural attraction. For the diplomats involved, it proved to be an ephemeral high point in the nascent pan-American movement. After it ended, the conference dropped out of historical memory. This is the first full account of the Niagara Falls Peace Conference to be published in North America since 1914. The author carefully reconstructs what happened at Niagara Falls, examining its historical significance for Canada's relationship with the Americas. From this almost forgotten event he draws important lessons on the conduct of international mediation and the perils of middle-power diplomacy.

Nonlinear time series methods have developed rapidly over a quarter of a century and have reached an advanced state of maturity during the last decade. Implementations of these methods for experimental data are now widely accepted and fairly routine; however, genuinely useful applications remain rare. This book focuses on the practice of applying these methods to solve real problems.To illustrate the usefulness of these methods, a wide variety of physical and physiological systems are considered. The technical tools utilized in this book fall into three distinct, but interconnected areas: quantitative measures of nonlinear dynamics, Monte-Carlo statistical hypothesis testing, and nonlinear modeling. Ten highly detailed applications serve as case studies of fruitful applications and illustrate the mathematical techniques described in the text.