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

The Future of EMU

The Future of EMU

‘This book brings together the most established experts in the area to provide a comprehensive interdisciplinary perspective on the issues expected to face EMU over the next few decades, and to propose solutions to the challenges which may arise. As well as offering new and insightful contributions to the integration debate, the book is also policy-oriented, and aims to assess the future impact of EMU on various EU policy areas, such as trade policy and fiscal policy, and also its impact on political union and labour markets. With a wealth of fresh and innovative interdisciplinary perspectives on the future of EMU and on the EU integration process as a whole, this fascinating book is an essential companion for all wishing to gain a greater understanding of the challenges facing European integration in the decades to come, and the part which EMU will play in the future of Europe.’

The Future of EMU

Cross Disciplinary Biometric Systems

Cross Disciplinary Biometric Systems

Cross disciplinary biometric systems help boost the performance of the conventional systems. Not only is the recognition accuracy significantly improved, but also the robustness of the systems is greatly enhanced in the challenging environments, such as varying illumination conditions. By leveraging the cross disciplinary technologies, face recognition systems, fingerprint recognition systems, iris recognition systems, as well as image search systems all benefit in terms of recognition performance. Take face recognition for an example, which is not only the most natural way human beings recognize the identity of each other, but also the least privacy-intrusive means because people show their face publicly every day. Face recognition systems display superb performance when they capitalize on the innovative ideas across color science, mathematics, and computer science (e.g., pattern recognition, machine learning, and image processing). The novel ideas lead to the development of new color models and effective color features in color science; innovative features from wavelets and statistics, and new kernel methods and novel kernel models in mathematics; new discriminant analysis frameworks, novel similarity measures, and new image analysis methods, such as fusing multiple image features from frequency domain, spatial domain, and color domain in computer science; as well as system design, new strategies for system integration, and different fusion strategies, such as the feature level fusion, decision level fusion, and new fusion strategies with novel similarity measures.

Cross Disciplinary Biometric Systems

The Newcom++ Vision Book

The Newcom++ Vision Book

The Book contains the Vision of the researchers of the European Network of Excellence NEWCOM++ (Network of Excellence on Wireless COMmunication) on the present and future status of Wireless Communication Networks. In its content, the community of NEWCOM++ researchers, shaped under the common ground of a mainly academic network of excellence, have distilled their scientific wisdom in a number of areas characterized by the common denominator of wireless communications, by identifying the medium-long term research tendencies/problems, describing the tools to face them and providing a relatively large number of references for the interested reader. The identified areas and the researchers involved in their redaction reflect the intersection of the major topics in wireless communications with those that are deeply investigated in NEWCOM++; they are preceded by an original description of the main trends in user/society needs and the degree of fulfilment that ongoing and future wireless communications standards will more likely help achieving. The appendix of the Book contains a list of ‘Millenium Problems’, seminal problems in the area of wireless communication networks, characterized by being crucial and still unsolved. The problems have been identified by NEWCOM++ researchers and filtered by the editors of the Vision Book.

The Newcom++ Vision Book

Finding Faith

Finding Faith

Despite the masses still lining up to enter mega-churches with warehouse-like architecture, casually dressed clergy, and pop Christian music, the Post-Boomer generationthose ranging in age from twenty to fortyis having second thoughts. In this perceptive look at the evolving face of Christianity in contemporary culture, sociologists Richard Flory and Donald E. Miller argue that we are on the verge of another potential revolution in how Christians worship and associate with one another.

Finding Faith

Advances in Electronic Engineering, Communication and Management Vol.1

Advances in Electronic Engineering, Communication and Management Vol.1

This volume presents the main results of 2011 International Conference on Electronic Engineering, Communication and Management (EECM2011) held December 24-25, 2011, Beijing China. The EECM2011 is an integrated conference providing a valuable opportunity for researchers, scholars and scientists to exchange their ideas face to face together. The main focus of the EECM 2011 and the present 2 volumes Advances in Electronic Engineering, Communication and Management is on Power Engineering, Electrical engineering applications, Electrical machines, as well as Communication and Information Systems Engineering.

Advances in Electronic Engineering, Communication and Management Vol.1

Conversation and Brain Damage

Conversation and Brain Damage

How do people with brain damage communicate? How does the partial or total loss of the ability to speak and use language fluently manifest itself in actual conversation? How are people with brain damage able to expand their cognitive ability through interaction with others – and how do these discursive activities in turn influence cognition? This groundbreaking collection of new articles examines the ways in which aphasia and other neurological deficits lead to language impairments that shape the production, reception and processing of language. Edited by noted linguistic anthropologist Charles Goodwin and with contributions from a wide range of international scholars, the articles provide a pragmatic and interactive perspective on the types of challenges that face aphasic speakers in any given act of communication. Conversation and Brain Damage will be invaluable to linguists, discourse analysts, linguistic and medical anthropologists, speech therapists, neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, workers in mental health care and in public health, sociologists, and readers interested in the long-term implications of brain damage.

Conversation and Brain Damage

Funeral in Blue

Funeral in Blue

When her brother arrives on her doorstep, Hester Monk is shocked – as much by the unexpectedness of the visit as by the reason for it. For since her marriage to Monk, Charles and his elegant wife, Imogen, have kept their distance. But now Charles needs Hester’s help. He believes Imogen is having an affair – there can be no other explanation for her recent strange behaviour. However, before Hester is able to investigate, a tragedy occurs. In a nearby artist’s studio two women have been brutally killed. Having left the police force with extreme ill feeling between himself and his superior, the last thing Monk wants to do is face the demons of his past. But, in the course of his work, Monk is left with no choice but to visit his old adversary, Runcorn, and involve himself with the sensational murder case.

Funeral in Blue

Straw Men

Straw Men

Convicted of a vicious attack that left a rookie policewoman near death and unable to remember her past, new DNA evidence frees the madman known as the Scarecrow from prison. Teresa Harnett must face the possibility that her flawed memory put the wrong man behind bars. But then the phone calls begin — and the crackly voice of the Scarecrow reawakens her terror. Only psychologist Jim Christensen can pull the truth from her shattered mind.

Straw Men

Sisters in White

Sisters in White

‘…love, loss, lies, grief, finding happiness in the face of adversity, romance, humor, bravery, hot hot hot sex scenes, marriages, births and totally awesome characters.’ –Supportive Business Moms, UK

Sisters in White

Mendelssohn, Goethe and the Walpurgis Night

Mendelssohn, Goethe and the Walpurgis Night

Mendelssohn, Goethe, and the Walpurgis Night addresses tolerance and acceptance in the face of cultural, political, and religious strife. Its point of departure is the Walpurgis Night. The Night, also known as Beltane or May Eve, was supposedly an annual witches’ Sabbath that centered around the Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz Mountains. After exploring how a notoriously pagan celebration came to be named after the Christian missionary St. Walpurgis (ca. 710-79), John Michael Cooper discusses the Night’s treatments in several closely interwoven works by Goethe and Mendelssohn. His book situates those works in their immediate personal and professional contexts, as well as among treatments by a wide array of other artists, philosophers, and political thinkers, including Voltaire, Lessing, Shelley, Heine, Delacroix, and Berlioz. In an age of decisive political and religious conflict, Walpurgis Night became a heathen muse: a source of spiritual inspiration that was neither specifically Christian, nor Jewish, nor Muslim. And Mendelssohn’s and Goethe’s engagements with it offer new insights into its role in European cultural history, as well as into issues of political, religious, and social identity — and the relations between cultural groups — in today’s world. John Michael Cooper is Professor of Music at Southwestern University and author of Mendelssohn’s ‘Italian’ Symphony (Oxford University Press).

Mendelssohn, Goethe and the Walpurgis Night

The Nuclear Environmentalist

The Nuclear Environmentalist

This book explains how society will face an energy crisis in the coming decades owing to increasing scarcity of fossil fuels and climate change impacts. It carefully explores this coming crisis and concisely examines all of the major technologies related to energy production (fossil fuels, renewables, and nuclear) and their impacts on our society and environment. The author argues that it is wrong to pit alternatives to fossil fuels against each other and proposes that nuclear energy, although by no means free of problems, can be a viable source of reliable and carbon-free electricity. He concludes by calling for a diversified and rational mix of electricity generation in order to mitigate the effects of the energy crisis. Throughout, the book is spiced with science, history, and anecdotes in a way that ensures rewarding reading without loss of rigor.

The Nuclear Environmentalist

Solar and Infrared Radiation Measurements

Solar and Infrared Radiation Measurements

The rather specialized field of solar and infrared radiation measurement has become more and more important in the face of growing demands by the renewable energy and climate change research communities for data that are more accurate and have increased temporal and spatial resolution. Updating decades of acquired knowledge in the field, Solar and Infrared Radiation Measurements details the strengths and weaknesses of instruments used to conduct such solar and infrared radiation measurements.

Solar and Infrared Radiation Measurements

Master Your Mac

Master Your Mac

OS X is a lot more than just a pretty face. Sure, the basics are easy, but beneath that gorgeous surface lie countless powerful features.,

If you want to go beyond the basics, Master Your , will take you there. With tips on everything from organizing your workspace to strengthening your computer’s security, author Matt Cone will show you how to tweak, customize, and control your Mac. And since many of the best tools for unlocking your Mac’s potential don’t come with OS X, you’ll discover the best apps to fix those everyday Apple annoyances and make your computer do things your way.

Master Your Mac

Programming ASP.NET MVC 4

Programming ASP.NET MVC 4

Get up and running with , , 4, and learn how to build modern server-side web applications. This guide helps you understand how the , performs, and shows you how to use various features to solve many real-world development scenarios you’re likely to face. In the process, you’ll learn how to work with HTML, JavaScript, the Entity Framework, and other web technologies.,

You’ll start by learning core concepts such as the Model-View-Controller architectural pattern, and then work your way toward advanced topics. The authors demonstrate ASP.NET MVC 4 best practices and techniques by building a sample online auction site (‘EBuy’) throughout the book.

Programming ASP.NET MVC 4

Python Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Python Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Portable, powerful, and a breeze to use, Python is the popular open source object-oriented , language used for both standalone programs and scripting applications. It is now being used by an increasing number of major organizations, including NASA and Google.,

Updated for Python 2.4, The Python Cookbook, 2nd Edition offers a wealth of useful code for all Python programmers, not just advanced practitioners. Like its predecessor, the new edition provides solutions to problems that Python programmers face everyday.

Python Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Recipes

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Recipes

Have you mastered the ‘how-tos’ of Reporting Services? Can you confidently , simple reportsbut now you need help with meeting the demands of more complex and advanced types of reports? If so, this is the ideal resource for you. Packed with proven design practices, this book serves as a collection of recipes for solving design problems so that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel with each challenge you face. Organized by specific types of reports, the book covers grouped reports, charts, composite reports, dashboards, forms and labels, interactive reports, and more.

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Recipes

Beginning SharePoint 2013

Beginning SharePoint 2013

Following on the heels of successful previous editions, this perennial bestseller is completely updated for the latest iteration of SharePoint. The team of authors walks you through building , solutions using , 2013, while providing real-world scenarios and detailed descriptions that highlight best practices for configuration and customization. Featuring new chapters that discuss managing permissions and working with , Services, this ideal introductory guide shows you how to efficiently handle a variety of SharePoint challenges that you may face and gives you the tools you need to put this popular content management platform to work for you.

Beginning SharePoint 2013