Stephen Bennett

When Stephen’s mother-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer, his family life was turned upside down. But when his six-year-old daughter is also diagnosed soon after, life quickly becomes unrecognisable, and the whole family is plunged into a challenging and uncertain world. Fuelled by a mixture of hope, fear and love, this is the story of one family’s tragic yet heart-warming journey through cancer diagnoses and treatments. Told through the eyes of a father trying to guide his young daughter through treatment and support his whole family while struggling to cope with the extreme challenges himself, Stephen diaries the journey as he desperately clings to the fading hope of a miracle that might just see his daughter overcome the seemingly impossible.

Letters from Arabia is an in-depth account of life and language in the Middle East, redolent with the fragrance of spice and the esoteric magnificence of ancient architecture and philosophy, an indulgent dive into the history and culture of the Arab lands.

The motivations behind those who went on the Third Crusade examined through close investigation of their social networks. The Third Crusade (1189-1192) was an attempt by Latin Christendom to reconquer the Holy Land, following the capture of Jerusalem by the Ayyubid sultan Saladin in 1187. Tens of thousands responded to a call for a crusade by Pope Gregory VIII and the efforts of his preachers at mass cross-taking ceremonies, rallying to the expedition's leaders - Frederick Barbarossa, Philip Augustus, and Richard the Lionheart. This book analyses the communal and cultural factors that influenced nobles from north-western Europe who embarked on the Third Crusade, bringing out the motives, dynamics, and extent of their participation, and placing that participation in the broader social and geographical context of crusading and medieval life. It shows that significant numbers of them were themselves descended from crusaders, and that the majority of them travelled to the Levant in the company of friends, family, and neighbours, as well as through membership of a military household. It also highlights the role of key individuals - both male and female - who influenced the decision to undertake the crusade, and identifies the significant role played by particular religious institutions in the diffusion of crusading ideology.

The motivations behind those who went on the Third Crusade examined through close investigation of their social networks. The Third Crusade (1189-1192) was an attempt by Latin Christendom to reconquer the Holy Land, following the capture of Jerusalem by the Ayyubid sultan Saladin in 1187. Tens of thousands responded to a call for a crusade by Pope Gregory VIII and the efforts of his preachers at mass cross-taking ceremonies, rallying to the expedition's leaders - Frederick Barbarossa, Philip Augustus, and Richard the Lionheart. This book analyses the communal and cultural factors that influenced nobles from north-western Europe who embarked on the Third Crusade, bringing out the motives, dynamics, and extent of their participation, and placing that participation in the broader social and geographical context of crusading and medieval life. It shows that significant numbers of them were themselves descended from crusaders, and that the majority of them travelled to the Levant in the company of friends, family, and neighbours, as well as through membership of a military household. It also highlights the role of key individuals - both male and female - who influenced the decision to undertake the crusade, and identifies the significant role played by particular religious institutions in the diffusion of crusading ideology.

The Definitive Guide to Governing Shared Services and SOA Projects SOA Governance: Governing Shared Services On-Premise and in the Cloud is the result of a multi-year project to collect proven industry practices for establishing IT governance controls specific to the adoption of SOA and service-orientation. Authored by world-renowned experts in the fields of SOA, IT governance, and cloud computing, this comprehensive book provides clear direction as to what does and does not constitute SOA governance and then steps the reader through the most important industry governance practices, as they pertain to individual SOA project lifecycle stages. With a consistent, vendor-neutral focus, and with the help of case study examples, the authors demonstrate how to define and position precepts, organizational roles, processes, standards, and metrics. Readers benefit from thorough and visually depicted cross-references and mapping between roles, processes, precepts, and project stages, enabling them to fully explore dynamics and dependencies and thereby learn how to use these governance controls to create their own custom SOA governance systems. This important title will be valuable to every practitioner concerned with making SOA work, including senior IT managers, project managers, architects, analysts, developers, administrators, QA professionals, security specialists, and cloud computing professionals. Topic Areas Defining SOA governance Establishing an SOA governance office and program Working with proven SOA governance precepts and processes Identifying organizational roles and relating them to SOA governance Associating design-time and runtime SOA project stages with SOA governance controls Governance considerations specific to shared services Roles, precepts, and factors specific to cloud-based services Understanding and categorizing SOA governance products and technologies Applying governance controls as early as the planning stages and measuring their success in subsequent stages Using vitality triggers to govern shared services on an on-going basis SOA governance controls that pertain to business information documents and policies