New Releases by Christopher Ford

The explosive growth of “ransomware” attacks in recent years is the result of dynamics in which the cost and risk to attackers have all but disappeared, victims’ incentives to pay promptly have increased, and the profitability of ransomware crime has duly exploded. We will be unable to rein in the ransomware problem unless we directly address the game-theoretical incentive structures that have produced this crisis. By taking effective steps to realign these incentives—such as by incentivizing ransomware- resistant “best practices,” ending victims’ ability to pass cyber ransom costs along to insurance providers, imposing traditional “know your customer” and other associated banking regulatory practices upon cryptocurrency transactions, and taking steps to reduce cyber criminals’ ability to rely upon safe haven in jurisdictions such as Russia—we may be able to break the vicious circle in which we presently find ourselves.

No fairytales or games are being played in Valley Pines... Will you survive? Holly Hall 2 is a mind-blowing action thriller from the first page to the last. This is the highly anticipated Junior and Senior year for the Valley Pines Clique. Last year, the Valley Pines Clique barely made it through the school year with their lives. Have all of the late-night partying and heavy drug use at Valley Pines University caught up with them? Will the Valley Pines Clique continue to live their lives so wild and recklessly? When the crooked streets and college life mix, it can ignite to become a highly explosive and dangerous combination.

Perfect Peace is a very powerful, motivational book that can be used daily for spiritual growth. It can serve as a tool to teach individuals how to find happiness through any circumstance. The promises of Christ will never get old. Reading the promises of Christ will always make anyone feel brand new. Perfect Peace is great for getting rid of anxieties, depression, fear, and all kinds of stresses, which saturates everyday life. Lack of focus on the Word of God can make life''s journey very rough and bumpy. The Word of God is extremely powerful and will not ever return back void or insufficient. The Word is literally medicine to your physical and spiritual health. The Word heals all pains, sicknesses, and wounds. Perfect Peace can also serve as a tool for anyone destined and searching for greatness. Staying on the right path to success and avoiding distractions is key. Perfect Peace will also constantly remind you about who you really are. Many situations in life can occur that cannot be explained. Certain situations in life just cannot be controlled. But there is one thing that can be controlled at all times, and that is your mind. This book will help get rid of any bad, unconscious habits. Remaining conscious of actions and emotions at all times is exponentially vital. Perfect Peace is available abundantly through the Prince of Peace.

The New Testament is full of people about whom we know little. Who really was Pilate''s wife? She is given one verse in all the Gospels and never mentioned again. Yet her image of telling her husband, Pontius Pilate, to have nothing to do with Jesus, lives for the ages. When Jesus said in Luke 9:50, "for he that is not against us, is for us," who was he talking about? At the betrayal in the Gospel of Mark, an unnamed man is depicted running off naked when a soldier tries to apprehend him. Why is this moment never mentioned in any other telling of the Passion Narrative? In this collection of four short stories and a novelette, I explore the possibilities of what might have been. I offer the reader a speculative glimpse into the possible histories of events leading up to what was eventually written down in the Gospels.

Have you ever thought about buying a gun for family protection, but were concerned about keeping it safe from your children? This family guide with full color cartoon illustrations will hold your child''s interest while teaching the whole family how to be safe around guns. The book includes a written quiz as well as a certificate of completion your kids can hang on the wall or refrigerator.

Mr. Mustache lives in a small town. He enjoys all the activities seven-year-old boys love to do like running, swimming, and bicycling. But most of all, Mr. Mustache likes to learn about new and exciting things, like the circus that has just come into town! Mr. Mustache has never been to the circus. After he receives tickets from a lion tamer, he sets off on an adventure to the big top where he hopes to see all the exciting circus acts. As the lights dim, a spotlight shines on the barker, and the circus begins, Mr. Mustache secretly wonders what it would be like to entertain an audience from inside the ring. In this delightful childrens tale, a curious boy embarks on an adventure to the circus where he imagines a new life and happily discovers he is just fine with being himself.

This second place paper for the 2014 General Douglas MacArthur Military Leadership Writing Competition explores the U.S. Army''s inattention to communication as a leadership skill is particularly acute in light of the abundance of modern communication tools. The means available for Army leaders to communicate are the best they have ever been. Paradoxically, these increases in communication capacity diminish communications between leaders and those led. The Army is drowning in communications, and the victim is good leadership. The solution is remarkably simple: acknowledge the importance of effective communication and integrate the teaching of communication skills -- writing and speaking -- throughout the Army officer education system.

The winner of the Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) Essay Contest in 2010, this essay looks at how homeland security could benefit from crowd-sourced applications accessed through social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook. Christopher M. Ford looks at the apparent efficacy of two such endeavors: the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency''s (DARPA) competition to find ten 8-foot balloons moored across the continental U.S. and Wired Magazine challenge to “find” author Evan Ratliff. Based on these and other crowd-sourced applications, Ford suggests that the U.S. government could utilize the internet and social networking sites to potentially solve an array of discrete problems through the active participation of interested citizens.

Operational intelligence, knowledge of the enemy’s location and actions, is crucial to effective military operations. The Admirals’ Advantage offers a revealing look at naval operational intelligence based on the findings of a classified Operational Intelligence (OPINTEL) Lessons-Learned Project and a 1998 Symposium at the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center. Participants included senior intelligence and operational leaders who explored the evolution and significance of OPINTEL since World War II. Past and current practices were examined with inputs from fleet and shore commands and insights from interviews and correspondence with senior flag officers and intelligence professionals.

Background: Concession stands at high school events are exempt from USDA regulations. They generally sell unhealthy foods and fear change will affect profits. Methods: Concession stand sales for two seasons of high school football games in Muscatine, Iowa were compared. In between seasons, two types of changes were made: 1) using healthier ingredients (less saturated fat, no trans-fat) and 2) offering additional healthier foods. Satisfaction surveys of students and parents were conducted before and after the changes. Data were collected in 2008 and 2009 and analyzed in 2012. Results: Total sales were similar between years, but the sales of new healthy foods comprised 9.2 % of the total in the second year and sales of some new items rose with each game. Modified items, healthier nachos and popcorn, remained profitable at 26.1% and 4.9% of revenue. The “healthy makeover” had no influence on student satisfaction and it dramatically improved parent satisfaction (p

Two boys set sail in a magical Pirate adventure of discovery and friendship. A debut picture book from Christopher Ford and Shaun Remington full of imagination, colour and rhyme for young children to join in with and enjoy.

Greek tragedy has never been so funny Zozimos'' journey to the kingdom of Sticatha has been anything but smooth. He''s survived enslavement, battled golems and a ravenous Cyclops, and generally served as plaything to gods and goddesses looking for a good laugh. All for the sake of reclaiming the Sticathan royal throne--stolen from him by an evil witch, aka his stepmother. You''d think that a stickman would catch a break after all that, but you''d be wrong. Arriving home only brings crazy family members and a return trip to sea, where mercenary centaurs and giant boar gods keep Zozimos questing and readers laughing. It would all be an epic tragedy if it wasn''t so funny.

This thesis presents the development of a selective-etch fabrication process to create sub-10 nanometre metallic gaps and the subsequent use of the gaps to study the electronics of nanocrystals and molecules. A complete picture of the success of the process required both examination by scanning electron microscopy as well as probing the current response to an applied bias at low temperature. The empty gaps were fully characterised before self-assembling 7 nm CdSe nanocrystals onto the metal with the help of linker molecules. The I-V characteristics of the empty gaps showed a reduction of the tunnelling barrier height from the expected value (~5.1 eV, the work function of Au) when the results were fitted to the Simmons tunnelling model for a metal-insulator-metal system. Results indicate that after the barrier height is surpassed, a transition from direct to field-effect (Fowler-Nordheim) tunnelling occurs. After CdSe assembly, the collected I-V characteristics of the system at 77 K showed varied results. Many devices displayed conductance peaks at low voltages comparable to the results of the shadow evaporation process for 4.2 nm nanocrystals (also documented in this thesis). Several devices revealed switching between multiples of fundamental curves, suggesting conduction through multiples of nanocrystals.

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are high temperature (600C-1000C) composite metallic/ceramic-cermet electrochemical devices. There is a need to effectively manage the heat transfer through the cell to mitigate material failure induced by thermal stresses while yet preserving performance. The present dissertation offers a novel thermodynamic optimization approach that utilizes dimensionless geometric parameters to design a SOFC. Through entropy generation minimization, the architecture of a planar SOFC has been redesigned to optimally balance thermal gradients and cell performance. Cell performance has been defined using the 2nd law metric of exergetic efficiency. One constrained optimization problem was solved. The optimization sought to maximize exergetic efficiency through minimizing total entropy production while constraining thermal gradients. Optimal designs were produced that had exergetic efficiency exceeding 92% while maximum thermal gradients were between 219 C/m and 1249 C/m. As the architecture was modified, the magnitude of sources of entropy generation changed. Ultimately, it was shown that the architecture of a SOFC can be modified through thermodynamic optimization to maximize performance while limiting thermal gradients. The present dissertation highlights a new design methodology and provides insights on the connection between thermal gradients, performance, sources of entropy generation, and cell architecture.

When Zozimos is banished by an evil witch (his stepmother!) from the kingdom of Sticatha-the kingdom he was next in line to rule-he trains at battle (if you call chasing after butterflies training), travels across stormy seas (thanks for that, Poseidon), slays golems and monsters (with a lot of help), charms beautiful women (not really), and somehow (despite his own ineptitude) survives quest after quest. By the love of Zeus, though, none of it brings him any closer to home! It does, however, make for one quirky, original, giggle-provoking graphic novel sure to appeal to any kid interested in Greek mythology, or merely looking for an entertaining read.

In this humorous take on the Odyssey, Zozimos, banished from his country by his evil stepmother, has many adventures as he prepares to return home to reclaim the throne that is rightfully his.

St. Tropez is the Crown Jewel of the French Riviera. It is the playground for the Rich and Famous who live and play in the life''s fast lane. They have discovered the secret to staying fit and trim while indulging their appitites for La Dolce Vita. Now you too can live life to the fullest and still keep your youthful figure and vigor. The St.Tropez Diet tells you how.

Eighteen-year-old Christopher, who plans to be a spy, learns of a murder cover-up through his summer job as a morgue assistant and teams up with Tina, a gorgeous newspaper reporter, to investigate, despite great danger.

A survey of the three small islands, Kasatochi, Koniuji, and Ulak Islands, located in the Andreanof Island group.

In order to facilitate the application of solid oxide fuel cells, in conjunction with reduced research and development costs, there is a need for accurate performance models to aid scientists and engineers in component and process design. To this end, an enhanced transient performance model has been developed. The present thesis enhances transient modeling and simulation via characterization of two important transient phenomena. They are bimodal stimuli (i.e., simultaneous changes in reactant supply and load demand) electrical transients, inclusive of the simulation of electrolysis, and the electrochemical light off phenomenon. One key result of the electrochemical light off simulations was that the realization that electrochemical parameters such as cell potential may be used as dynamic control variables during transitional heating of the cell. Reflective of the state-of-the-art in controls and dynamic simulation development, the modeling efforts are completed in the MATLAB computing environment. There is then a tangible software development that accompanies the modeling and simulation exercises and transient insights resolved.

Molecular Biology of Cancer has been extensively revised and covers heredity cancer, microarray technology and increased study of childhood cancers. It continues to provide a detailed overview of the process which lead to the development and proliferation of cancer cells, including the techniques available for their study. It also describes the means by which tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes may be used in the diagnosis and in determining the prognosis of a wide variety of cancers, including breast, genitourinary, lung and gastrointestinal cancer.