Dignity Therapy

Dignity Therapy

Maintaining dignity for patients approaching death is a core principle of palliative care. Translating that principle into methods of guiding care at the end of life, however, can be a complicated and daunting task. Dignity therapy, a psychological intervention developed by Dr. Harvey Max Chochinov and his internationally lauded research group, has been designed specifically to address many of the psychological, existential, and spiritual challenges that patients and their families face as they grapple with the reality of life drawing to a close. Tested with patients with advanced illnesses in Canada, the United States, Australia, China, Scotland, England, and Denmark, dignity therapy has been shown to not only benefit patients, but their families as well. In the first book to lay out the blueprint for this unique and meaningful intervention, Chochinov addresses one of the most important dimensions of being human. Being alive means being vulnerable and mortal; he argues that dignity therapy offers a way to preserve meaning and hope for patients approaching death. Dignity Therapy: Final Words for Final Days is a beautiful introduction to this pioneering and innovative work. With history and foundations of dignity in care, and step by step guidance for readers interested in implementing the program, this volume illuminates how dignity therapy can change end-of-life experience for those about to die – and for those who will grieve their passing.

Dignity Therapy

Differential Evolution

Differential Evolution

Differential evolution is a very simple but very powerful stochastic optimizer. Since its inception, it has proved very efficient and robust in function optimization and has been applied to solve problems in many scientific and engineering fields. In Differential Evolution , Dr. Qing begins with an overview of optimization, followed by a state-of-the-art review of differential evolution, including its fundamentals and up-to-date advances. He goes on to explore the relationship between differential evolution strategies, intrinsic control parameters, non-intrinsic control parameters, and problem features through a parametric study. Findings and recommendations on the selection of strategies and intrinsic control parameter values are presented. Lastly, after an introductory review of reported applications in electrical and electronic engineering fields, different research groups demonstrate how the methods can be applied to such areas as: multicast routing, multisite mapping in grid environments, antenna arrays, analog electric circuit sizing, electricity markets, stochastic tracking in video sequences, and color quantization.

Differential Evolution

Small Animal Clinical Diagnosis by Laboratory Methods - Fifth Edition

Small Animal Clinical Diagnosis by Laboratory Methods - Fifth Edition

A quick guide to appropriately selecting and interpreting laboratory tests, Small Animal Clinical Diagnosis by Laboratory Methods, 5th Edition helps you utilize your in-house lab or your specialty reference lab to efficiently make accurate diagnoses without running a plethora of unnecessary and low-yield tests. It provides answers to commonly asked questions relating to laboratory tests, and solutions to frequently encountered problems in small animal diagnosis. For easy reference, information is provided by clinical presentation and abnormalities, and includes hundreds of tables, boxes, key points, and algorithms. This edition, now in full color, is updated with the latest advances in laboratory testing methods and diagnostic problem solving. Written by noted educators Dr. Michael Willard and Dr. Harold Tvedten, this book may be used as an on-the-spot guide to specific problems or conditions as well as a reference for more detailed research on difficult cases.

Small Animal Clinical Diagnosis by Laboratory Methods - Fifth Edition

Spinal Injuries and Conditions in Young Athletes

Spinal Injuries and Conditions in Young Athletes

Spinal Injuries and Conditions in Young Athletes provides a comprehensive, in-depth review of the mechanisms and management of back injuries and problems occurring in this ever-growing and active population. Led by Dr. Lyle Micheli and his co-editors, an award-winning group of orthopedists discusses and explores common adolescent spine injuries and procedures, in addition to breakthroughs in gene therapy, tissue engineering, and complex operations. As spine surgery is among the most complex and challenging procedures performed in orthopedics, special considerations and procedures are required in pediatric populations. Since many corrective surgeries run the risk of arthritis later in life, particular efforts must be made in young populations to prevent future injury in a child’s adolescence and young adulthood while maximizing return-to-play potential. Chapters cover acute spinal injuries, concussions, overuse injuries, spinal malformations, tumors, infections and inflammatory diseases across the range of athletics, including swimming and combat sports. Spinal Injuries and Conditions in Young Athletes provides an immeasurable guide for back surgery in pediatric populations and will be a go-to resource for practitioners and residents in pediatric orthopedics and sports medicine.

Spinal Injuries and Conditions in Young Athletes

Energy, Transport and the Environment

Energy, Transport and the Environment

Sustainable mobility is a highly complex problem as it is affected by the interactions between socio-economic, environmental, technological and political issues. Energy, Transport, & the Environment: Addressing the Sustainable Mobility Paradigm brings together leading figures from business, academia and governments to address the challenges and opportunities involved in working towards sustainable mobility. Key thinkers and decision makers approach topics and debates including: energy security and resource scarcity greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions urban planning, transport systems and their management governance and finance of transformationthe threats of terrorism and climate change to our transport systems. Introduced by a preface from U.S. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu and an outline by the editors, Dr Oliver Inderwildi and Sir David King, Energy, Transport, & the Environment is divided into six sections. These sections address and explore the challenges and opportunities for energy supply, road transport, urban mobility, aviation, sea and rail, as well as finance and economics in transport. Possible solutions, ranging from alternative fuels to advanced urban planning and policy levers, will be examined in order to deepen the understanding of currently proposed solutions within the political realities of the dominating economic areas. The result of this detailed investigation is an integrated view of sustainable transport for both people and freight, making Energy, Transport, & the Environment key reading for researchers, decision makers and policy experts across the public and private sectors.

Energy, Transport and the Environment

Precious Blood

Precious Blood

Dr Edward Jenner is a forensic pathologist and has performed thousands of autopsies but the killing of Andie Delore is different. She is marked with an ancient script. The sole eye witness is Andie’s flatmate and she turns to Dr Jenner for help. But when more victims are found it seems the killer is leading them into his own private nightmare, where there will be no escape.

Precious Blood

Fingal OReilly

Fingal OReilly

Fans of Taylors bestselling Irish Country novels know Dr. Fingal Flahertie OReilly as the irascible senior partner of a general practice in the colorful Irish village of Ballybucklebo. Newly married to his once long-lost sweetheart, hes ready to settle into domestic bliss, but theres always something requiring his attention, be it a riding accident, a difficult patient with a worrisome heart condition, a spot of grouse-hunting, or even some tricky shenanigans at the local dog races.

Fingal OReilly

Waves and Structures in Nonlinear Nondispersive Media

Waves and Structures in Nonlinear Nondispersive Media

‘Waves and Structures in Nonlinear Nondispersive Media: General Theory and Applications to Nonlinear Acoustics is devoted completely to nonlinear structures. The general theory is given here in parallel with mathematical models. Many concrete examples illustrate the general analysis of Part I. Part II is devoted to applications to nonlinear acoustics, including specific nonlinear models and exact solutions, physical mechanisms of nonlinearity, sawtooth-shaped wave propagation, self-action phenomena, nonlinear resonances and engineering application (medicine, nondestructive testing, geophysics, etc.). This book is designed for graduate and postgraduate students studying the theory of nonlinear waves of various physical nature. It may also be useful as a handbook for engineers and researchers who encounter the necessity of taking nonlinear wave effects into account of their work. Dr. Gurbatov S.N. is the head of Department, and Vice Rector for Research of Nizhny Novgorod State University. Dr. Rudenko O.V. is the Full member of Russian Academy of Sciences, the head of Department at Moscow University and Professor at BTH (Sweden). Dr. Saichev A.I. is the Professor at the Faculty of Radiophysics of Nizhny Novgorod State University, Professor of ETH Zrich.

Waves and Structures in Nonlinear Nondispersive Media

Foundations of Large-Scale Multimedia Information Management and Retrieval

Foundations of Large-Scale Multimedia Information Management and Retrieval

‘Foundations of Large-Scale Multimedia Information Management and Retrieval: Mathematics of Perception’ covers knowledge representation and semantic analysis of multimedia data and scalability in signal extraction, data mining, and indexing. The book is divided into two parts: Part I – Knowledge Representation and Semantic Analysis focuses on the key components of mathematics of perception as it applies to data management and retrieval. These include feature selection/reduction, knowledge representation, semantic analysis, distance function formulation for measuring similarity, and multimodal fusion. Part II – Scalability Issues presents indexing and distributed methods for scaling up these components for high-dimensional data and Web-scale datasets. The book presents some real-world applications and remarks on future research and development directions. The book is designed for researchers, graduate students, and practitioners in the fields of Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Large-scale Data Mining, Database, and Multimedia Information Retrieval.Dr. Edward Y. Chang was a professor at the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of California at Santa Barbara, before he joined Google as a research director in 2006. Dr. Chang received his M.S. degree in Computer Science and Ph.D degree in Electrical Engineering, both from Stanford University.

Foundations of Large-Scale Multimedia Information Management and Retrieval

Particles, Sources and Fields, Volume 3

Particles, Sources and Fields, Volume 3

Continuing Dr. Schwinger’s work in the field of electrodynamics, this last volume of the trilogy focuses on the two-particle problem and applications to hydrogenic atoms, positronium, and muonium. Attention also is given to the effect of strong magnetic fields, to an extended treatment of the photon propagation function, and to a confrontational discussion of the pion decay into two photons.

Particles, Sources and Fields, Volume 3