New Releases by Andrew Davidson

Pluto is associated with beginnings and endings, destruction and rebirth, as well as the emotions that accompany such sweeping events. Author Andrew Davidson here explores the rise and fall of empires -- ancient to modern -- and finds Pluto at their rise, and at their fall. Pluto was present at the early moments of the American Empire, and the planet will be in place in just a few years to signal the next stage in the United States' political presence in the world. The historical convergence of events is the replay of a drama seen at multiple times in various places, and America will not be spared. Pluto is returning to claim an Empire, yet again.

Skáldsagan Steindrekinn (e. The Gargoyle, 2008) er eftir Andrew Davidsson og birtist hér í íslenskri þýðingu Sölva Björns Sigurðssonar. Á myrkum vegi um miðja nótt hrapar bifreið í gljúfur. Illa brenndur sleppur ökumaðurinn lifandi frá slysinu. Hann þolir óbærilegar kvalir og sársaukafulla meðferð á sjúkrahúsinu í þeirri einu von að verða nægilega hraustur til að fremja sjálfsmorð. Þá birtist hin leyndardómsfulla Marianne Engel myndhöggvari. Hún fullyrðir að þau séu elskendur frá fyrra lífi, í Þýskalandi á miðöldum. Hann málaliði og leiguþý og hún skrifari og nunna í klaustrinu Engelthal. Marianne segir ævintýraríkar sögur frá fyrra lífi þeirra, m.a. frá Íslandi og Japan. Því meira sem þær fléttast saman, sljóvgast ruddaskapur hans og vantrú – brátt neyðist hann til að trúa hinu ótrúlega.

The spread of modernity throughout the non-Western world has had transformative effects not only on governments and economies but on the lives of individuals as well. The constraints and opportunities of modernization inevitably lead to the breakdown and supplanting of older social relations and livelihoods. In this volume Andrew P. Davidson examines the Nuba Mountain region of western Sudan to show how individuals and families struggle to maintain or expand their well-being in the face of continuous uncertainty, when control of their destinies is increasingly slipping out of the comforting confines of the village.As in many third world regions, changes in agriculture and market activity have occurred in the Nuba mountains in a far more compressed tune frame than in Europe. Davidson charts the social effects of the rationalization process by concentrating on the household as a mediating structure between the individual and the larger society. In his analysis the livelihood strategies of households act as a microcosm for the unevenness of development that is characteristic of modernizing economies. Davidson offers a comparative and historical examination of economic life in three villages in order to better understand the capacities and limitations that ultimately condition what people can and cannot do. He shows how the older lineage system based on communalism, kinship, and age-based hierarchy is being displaced by new forces of social organization and individual orientation which have eroded village cohesion and left the Nuba vulnerable to the Islamic-dominated government in Khartoum and the ravages of the continuing Sudanese civil war.In its combination of empirical analysis, ethnographic fieldwork, and theoretical inquiry In the Shadow of History reconceptualizes development in such a way that the dynamics of historical transformation are made clear. This study hi the classic anthropological tradition will be a valuable resource for anthropologists, economists, historians, and Africa area specialists.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Theory predicts that when prey can reach a size refuge from predation, prey vulnerability to predation is a function of hatchling size, growth rate, and the handling limitations of its predator, which collectively influence the amount of time prey spend vulnerable. I examined the mechanistic role of prey size for the predator-prey interaction between predatory crayfish (Procambarus fallax) and apple snail prey (Pomacea paludosa and P. maculata) and found that crayfish feeding rates decreased with snail size, such that smaller hatchling P. maculata were more than twenty times more vulnerable than hatchling P. paludosa. Experimental manipulations of productivity increased apple snail growth rates, reducing the effects of predatory crayfish on P. maculata survivorship, but not P. paludosa survivorship. My results indicate that when prey can reach a size refuge from predation, increased system productivity decreases predator limitation of that prey.

Andrew Davidson goes behind the scenes at Britain''s largest hospital trust and describes a year in the life of a hospital through the stories of those who work there and those who pass through. St Thomas'' Hospital, opposite the Houses of Parliament, is one of the most famous centres of medical excellence in the world. For the past two years it has been the subject of bitter political controversy over the decision to amalgamate it with its rival, Guy''s. From the man who runs the Mortuary to the Chief Executive who has ''finished'' an affair with the head of PR - but who has just born his child - to the patients with Multi Drug Resistant Infection (an extremely scary potential by-product of going into hospital) and those who come into Casualty to have frozen fish removed from unlikely places - this is the most vividly realised book that has ever emerged from a modern hospital. It reveals the choices that doctors, nurses, administrators and patients must make each day - decisions that are often literally a matter of life and death.

Featuring 250 previously unknown photographs, this is the extraordinary true story of a young doctor whose photos left behind an astonishing firsthand account of life at the front of World War I. As a twenty-five-year-old medical officer and one of the first doctors to win the Military Cross, Fred Davidson took countless photographs while he served in the trenches from 1914-1915. Though he took them illegally, more than 250 of the photographs shot by Davidson and his fellow officers survived and are now shared for the first time in this harrowing, eye-catching, and poignant narrative of the Great War. In A Doctor in the Great War, author Andrew Davidson--the grandson of Fred--depicts the everyday lives of soldiers, both on and off duty: from the parade ground at Glasgow''s Maryhill to the brothels of Armentieres, from the band of brothers who dubbed themselves "Old Contemptibles" to the original folding Kodak and Ansco cameras they used. It is the story of the 1st Cameronians, who achieved notoriety for selling the Great War''s earliest front line photographs. And it is a deeply personal account of the pictures that have been passed down for three generations, describing the men who fought with Fred Davidson, the conditions they served in, the battles they saw, and the horrors they endured. A must-have for history and photography enthusiasts alike, this glimpse of the War to End All Wars is an unusually intimate portrait that will engulf you in the lives of soldiers and leave you humbled and amazed.

Mortgage-backed securities (MBS) are among the most complex of all financial instruments. Analysis of MBS requires blending empirical analysis of borrower behavior with the mathematical modeling of interest rates and home prices. Over the past 25 years, Andrew Davidson and Alexander Levin have been at the leading edge of MBS valuation and risk analysis. Mortgage Valuation Models: Embedded Options, Risk, and Uncertainty contains a detailed description of the sophisticated theories and advanced methods that the authors employ in real-world analyses of mortgage-backed securities. Issues such as complexity, borrower options, uncertainty, and model risk play a central role in the authors'' approach to the valuation of MBS. The coverage spans the range of mortgage products from loans and TBA (to-be-announced) pass-through securities to subordinate tranches of subprime-mortgage securitizations. With reference to the classical CAPM and APT, the book advocates extending the concept of risk-neutrality to modeling home prices and borrower options, well beyond interest rates. It describes valuation methods for both agency and non-agency MBS including pricing new loans; approaches to prudent risk measurement, ranking, and decomposition; and methods for modeling prepayments and defaults of borrowers. The authors also reveal quantitative causes of the 2007-09 financial crisis and provide insight into the future of the U.S. housing finance system and mortgage modeling as this field continues to evolve. This book will serve as a foundation for the future development of models for mortgage-backed securities.

The studies described here coalesce around the application of using nanomaterials as X-ray sensitizers for the treatment of cancers and elucidate several important principles regarding this topic. Specifically in this work the interaction of X-rays with nanomaterials is explored through simulations and experiments to better characterize the potential applications of nanomaterials as radiosensitizers. The thesis has four major components. First, the mechanism by which nanomaterials can absorb X-rays and deposit energy in water is described by Monte Carlo simulations. Electrons emitted from a gold nanoparticle under X-ray radiation are followed and their energy deposition mapped. The dose enhancement factor by various gold nanomaterials, their shape, and arrangement are determined. These simulations demonstrate two types of physical dose enhancement in relation to the location of the nanoparticle, remote T1PE and local T2PE. Secondly, these theoretical studies are supported by experiments employing silica coated gold nanoparticles and a fluorescent probe to determine the amount of hydroxyl radicals produced in water, a main radical product of X-ray radiolysis. T1PE was measured for a range of gold concentrations and broadband X-ray spectra. The results were compared with simulations and a strong agreement is shown. Similarly, small bare gold nanoparticles at concentrations lower than predicted are shown to exhibit a new type of radiosensitization mechanism known as chemical enhancement. This chemical enhancement mechanism is found to arise from catalytic conversion of radical species on the surface of gold nanoparticles and is quantified under various chemical conditions. Employment of nanomaterial radiosensitizers for chemical reactions is demonstrated with the polymerization of aniline and measured with a surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy. Because of these enhancement schemes, it is possible to employ these nanomaterials to treat targets such as tumors in the body. The third part of this thesis deals with instrumentation to treat, detect and image nanomaterials. Methods to enhance the dose of X-rays at a target location are explored through Monte Carlo simulations. X-ray beam delivery geometries were simulated and the dosage at the isocenter was compared with that at the surface of the interaction medium. The developed simulation code is also used to study detection and imaging of nanomaterials which have been delivered to a volume of interest. X-ray fluorescence imaging is simulated to understand the feasibility of such a system to detect and image small areas with added nanomaterials. The final part of this thesis presents the results of investigating the toxicity of the nanomaterials and its implications into their future success as radiosensitizers. X-ray absorption spectroscopy is employed to analyze the state of silver nanoparticles inhaled in the lungs of rats. This is a first of its kind study to attempt to determine the fate of silver nanoparticles in animals and better understand mechanisms of toxicity.

"As a twenty-five-year-old medical officer and one of the first doctors to win the Military Cross, Fred Davidson took countless photographs while he served in the trenches from 1914-1915. Though he took them illegally, more than 250 of the photographs shot by Davidson and his fellow officers survived and are now shared for the first time in this harrowing, eye-catching, and poignant narrative of the Great War. In A Doctor in the Great War, author Andrew Davidson-the grandson of Fred-depicts the everyday lives of soldiers, both on and off duty: from the parade ground at Glasgow's Maryhill to the brothels of Armentieres, from the band of brothers who dubbed themselves "Old Contemptibles" to the original folding Kodak and Ansco cameras they used. It is the story of the 1st Cameronians, who achieved notoriety for selling the Great War's earliest front line photographs. And it is a deeply personal account of the pictures that have been passed down for three generations, describing the men who fought with Fred Davidson, the conditions they served in, the battles they saw, and the horrors they endured."--Provided by publisher.

An extraordinary debut novel of love that survives the fires of hell and transcends the boundaries of time. On a burn ward, a man lies between living and dying, so disfigured that no one from his past life would even recognize him. His only comfort comes from imagining various inventive ways to end his misery. Then a woman named Marianne Engel walks into his hospital room, a wild-haired, schizophrenic sculptress on the lam from the psych ward upstairs, who insists that she knows him – that she has known him, in fact, for seven hundred years. She remembers vividly when they met, in another hospital ward at a convent in medieval Germany, when she was a nun and he was a wounded mercenary left to die. If he has forgotten this, he is not to worry: she will prove it to him. And so Marianne Engel begins to tell him their story, carving away his disbelief and slowly drawing him into the orbit and power of a word he''d never uttered: love.

Roman d''amour

Un terrible accident de trànsit deixa el protagonista d''aquesta màgica història prostrat en un llit d''hospital amb el cos mig cremat. En despertar-se, l''única idea que el turmenta és poder tornar a casa per posar fi a la seva vida: no pot suportar la idea d''haver-se convertit en un monstre. Però just en aquest moment entra en escena l''enigmàtica Marianne Engel, una pacient de l''àrea de psiquiatria que treballa com a escultora de gàrgoles.La revelació que li farà la Marianne és del tot sorprenent: havien estat amants a Alemanya durant l''època medieval. La Marianne li anirà desvetllant els detalls d''aquesta relació per mitjà d''unes intrigants faules carregades de passió i misteri, i arribarà un moment en què no sabrem del cert si tot el que explica és veritat o mentida.La gàrgola és una novel·la màgica que transportarà el lector a una època plena de fantasia; un llibre amb una atmosfera especial que ens farà tornar a creure en l''amor sense condicions, en els miracles i en el seu poder redemptor.

A complete guide to securitization. * Analyzes leases, tax liens, and other new securitization markets developing globally. * Contains exercises and examples taken from real transactions. * Companion CD-ROM includes calculation tools and examples, data for models, ongoing updates on models, and Q&A with authors to address complex securitization questions.

Introduces insects, looking at bees, ants, grasshoppers, fireflies, dragonflies, and beetles. Suggested level: junior.