Best Selling Books by Adam Christopher

Celebrate the lasting impact of Return of the Jedi with this exciting reimagining of the timeless Star Wars film featuring new perspectives from forty contributors. On May 25, 1983, Star Wars cemented its legacy as the greatest movie franchise of all time with the release of Return of the Jedi. In honor of its fortieth anniversary, forty storytellers re-create an iconic scene from Return of the Jedi through the eyes of a supporting character, from heroes and villains to droids and creatures. From a Certain Point of View features contributions by bestselling authors and trendsetting artists.

Using this methodology, I examine the Skira, a Classical Athenian festival of midsummer, employing it as a test case for the claims above. This results in a number of innovations over previous scholarship of the Skira. First, using a careful diachronic accounting of sources, I am able to show that the Skira existed in distinct phases and exhibited marked changes in purpose. Examining the oldest sources, it is clear that the Skira was a women-exclusive festival until 350BCE. At that point, Lycurgus, the Athenian politician, added a new procession to the Skira as part of his attempt to return Athens to its former greatness . This new focus, picturing the Skira as a masculine, patriotic festival, became the dominant way to discuss the festival for the following five hundred years. Second, examining sources synchronically, I am able to show that the earlier women''s festival was devoted primarily to Athena, not Demeter as is sometimes claimed. As part of that examination it is necessary also to demonstrate the multiplicity of ways in which Athena impacted the lives of Athenian woman and to complicate an essentialist view of divinities. In a synchronic look at the post-Lycurgan sources, I am able to show how Lycurgus employed the mythology of Euripides'' "Erechtheus" to create a new Skira, blending the traditional concerns of Athenian women expressed in the earlier Skira (family, the protection of children, fertility) with a new stress on autochthony and the veneration of ancestors.

In practice, it provided courts with a means to enact the mandates from the Visigothic Code and to foster stability. The result was a flexible synthesis of law, liturgy, and sacred space that was in many cases capable of harnessing spiritual and community pressure in legal proceedings.

The purpose of this dissertation was to produce knowledge on the academic performance and recovery success of students enrolled in a Recovery High School. The study site was Hope Academy, located in Indianapolis, IN, and at the time of this publication, one of just five schools in the U.S. accredited by the Association of Recovery Schools. Students enrolled between Fall 2010 and Spring 2017 were evaluated using academic test scores (NWEA-MAP), a measure of recovery success (GAIN-SS), as well as key informant interviews with 13 students and five staff members. It was concluded that recovery school students displayed similar levels of academic growth when compared to a nationallyrepresentative matched Virtual Comparison Group, t-stat = +0.849 (p=0.397). This finding provides evidence that even after experiencing a relapse, recovery school students were capable of achieving similar levels of academic growth as their peers not in recovery from substance use disorders. Interview participants provided more context to the quantitative findings with first-hand accounts of the impact the recovery school had on students.

A Member of the Food Chain?: Quantifying Primary Productivity from Nazi Germany to the International Biological Program, 1929-1989, tells the story of primary productivity, one of the fundamental measurements of the ecological and earth sciences today. Primary productivity is used in biology to refer to the aggregate photosynthetic production of the plant life of a particular region. Thanks to the rule of thermodynamics, most scientists have regarded the ability of plants to produce carbohydrates using carbon dioxide, water, and solar energy as foundational to all life throughout the twentieth century. Yet the history of the theory and methods used to quantify primary productivity is more complex than the straightforward and seemingly apolitical nature of the idea might initially suggest. This dissertation charts the genesis of this quantified measure from laboratory plant physiology, through agricultural science in National Socialist Germany, to postwar Global Ecology in the US.

These declines were accompanied by coordinate reductions in the levels of rbcS and rbcL mRNA, chloroplast rRNA, chloroplast DNA and total protein. We suggest that the prolongation of senescence in the antisense leaves is due to an impact of source strength on leaf developmental programming that occurs at the level of transcript abundance. To better understand the relationship between carbohydrates and development, we characterized carbon partitioning over ontogeny. Partitioning into ionic fractions, such as amino acids, was maintained at a steady state longer than partitioning into carbohydrates, which followed photosynthetic rate patterns. The ratio of hexoses to sucrose increased up to full leaf expansion, then declined again; however changes in invertase and hexokinase activities did not correlate with this pattern, although they paralleled each other.

Natural products from the marine environment constitute one of the richest and most reliable sources of bioactive molecules for drug discovery and biotechnology. Filamentous marine cyanobacteria are among the most prolific natural product producers, and with significant advances in genetics and genomics over the past decade are gaining increasing recognition for unusual or unprecedented biochemistry involved in natural product biosynthesis. However, the further development of several of these cyanobacterial secondary metabolites has not been accomplished because of low yields from field collections, slow growth of these organisms in laboratory cultures, and an absence of any genetic techniques for DNA manipulation. The aim of the research presented in this dissertation is to study the biosynthesis of natural products from the marine filamentous cyanobacterium majuscula to investigate how access to these compounds can be improved and the full potential of cyanobacterial strains can be realized. A variety of experiments are described herein, including : 1) A transcriptional analysis of the neurotoxin jamaicamide gene cluster from Lyngbya majuscula, which employed RT-PCR and reporter gene assays to better understand how cyanobacterial biosynthetic pathways are transcribed; 2) Investigations into jamaicamide regulation, which included a) protein pulldown assays to isolate possible light related regulatory proteins for this pathway and b) the development of a novel mass spectrometry approach to monitor natural product biosynthetic turnover, the effect of environmental parameters on this turnover, and confirm the impact of light on jamaicamide production; 3) Evaluating different methods for transferring DNA into Lyngbya filaments and taking the first steps in heterologously expressing portions of a Lyngbya gene cluster in the actinomycete Streptomyces coelicolor, and 4) Sequencing the genome of Lyngbya majuscula 3L, thereby revealing its natural product potential, a complex gene regulatory network and a surprising inability to fix atmospheric nitrogen. Collectively, these experiments provide new perspective on natural product biosynthesis in Lyngbya strains and direction on how these organisms and their natural products can be harnessed for biomedical and biotechnological applications.

Objectives: This thesis will explore some innovative solutions to communication difficulties that exist in higher education teaching of introductory programming. Communication between a teacher and student is important, as it is the main opportunity where a student can ask a teacher questions about a particular problem they have, and a teacher can give feedback to direct them towards a solution. It is expected that through utilising technology in laboratory practical classes, communication between teachers and student can be improved. Methods: This thesis primarily explores the possibilities of using student compiler and method invocation data, collected during a practical class and sent directly to a teacher. This data maybe beneficial as a method of allowing teachers to see if a student requires help. This thesis utilises a variety of research methods including questionnaires, observations of classroom interactions and collection of data recorded from student and teachers interactions with the technology. The approaches are used during an investigation into the current approaches of laboratory practical teaching, before progressing onto investigations using the technology developed that accompanies this thesis. Results: The results identified that the majority of the students and teachers who used the technology felt that it improved their ability to communicate within laboratory practical classes. The teachers felt that they could use the data collected by the technology to view activity from the students and see a student?s progress. The teachers could interpret the data collected from the technology and students who needed help could be identified. Conclusions: This thesis has demonstrated that technology has the potential to improve communication in laboratory classes, and enable teachers to support students more effectively. However, the technology developed in this thesis, does not eliminate the requirement for a teacher to interact with a student face-to-face, but rather its role is to act as an indicator of students who may need assistance.

This work is a relative exegesis of the Secret Gospel of Saint Thomas; an elaboration of the spiritual seeker''s efforts of transformation towards universal understanding, a potential that awaits every person. The capacity for equilibrium bestowed upon us defines our relation to God; depending heavily upon our ideas of the universal method, and when those ideas are revitalized and protracted through the firmament of greater truth, all notions of God, life, and our human station reach upheaval. Our task is uncovering what remains hidden, yet that which always existed, by overcoming the presumptions of a slumbering humanity who in many ways place their seeds of obstruction within us from the very beginning. It is our preeminent task to unmake ourselves in the eyes of mankind and to rebuild ourselves in the image and semblance of God''s desire, as this is the human purpose, the calling that does not cease until it is followed to the end; perhaps this book will help.

Cracked rotors present a significant safety and loss hazard in nearly every application of modern turbomachinery. This thesis focuses on the health monitoring, modeling, and analysis of machines with transverse breathing cracks, which open and close due to the self-weight of the rotor. After considering the modeling of cracked rotors, the thesis investigates an active structural health monitoring approach, focusing on the application of an active magnetic actuator to apply a specially designed external force excitation to the rotating shaft. Extensive experimental data has been collected and analyzed utilizing advanced diagnostic techniques. The presented results demonstrate that the use of a magnetic force actuator to apply external excitation has potential in the diagnostics of cracked rotors. The observed unique crack signatures demonstrate the ability of the method for early diagnosis of transverse rotor cracks.

Over the centuries, THE SHIELD has battled enemies of the United States-but what happens when she''s not sure who the enemy is?

A vibrant community music sector can strengthen broader community resilience. It is an acknowledged creator of social capital. It can help to define and leverage a community''s cultural character. Its sustainability is therefore an important issue.This thesis explores the sustainability of community music within the Green Triangle region. This region, encompassing contiguous areas of south-western Victoria and south-eastern South Australia, centres on the cities of Portland, Hamilton and Mount Gambier. The thesis also draws insights and lessons that may be applicable to community music in other Australian non-metropolitan regions.There are sound reasons for an initial pessimism about the sustainability of community music in such regions. A durable community music domain depends on the maintenance of a sufficient scale of musical engagement and a sufficient level of musical proficiency. Many non-metropolitan regions face economic, social, demographic and technological challenges to their overall sustainability. As a consequence, their capacity for an enduring community music engagement can be questioned.The thesis breaks new ground in documenting in detail the state of community music in the Green Triangle. It produces a comprehensive analysis of the region''s music-engaged festivals and events, and compiles a comprehensive listing of its community music groups. Ten specific groups, selected purposively to allow a range of insights across different music genres, localities and lifespans, are presented as detailed case studies. These ten groups encompass two choirs, two orchestras, two concert-style bands, a brass band, a pipe band, a Salvation Army band and an Irish group.Adopting a participant-centric phenomenological approach and applying a new typology which classifies the groups according to their musical and social character, the thesis explores the sustainability profile of these ten groups.Six interpretive themes emerge from the exploration. Three of the themes - the key role of group leadership, the need for careful management of membership continuity and recruitment, and the interdependency between the groups and the music-related festivals and events - are consistent with expectations derived from the prior analysis of the relevant academic literature. The other three themes, however, were less anticipated. They include the prevalence of a canny pragmatism guiding group activity and management; the presence of strong networking across groups, within the region and beyond; and the association of particular localities within the region with community music of a particular and distinctive style. The thesis concludes optimistically, albeit a cautious optimism. It acknowledges, drawing on ecological and evolutionary analogies, that there will always be volatility, including instances of group discontinuation, across a community music sector. Nonetheless, a range of community music events and groups in the Green Triangle are shown to be admirably adaptable and hearteningly durable, adding up to a community music sector with substance and sustainable momentum. By implication, there may also be grounds for optimism about community music elsewhere in non-metropolitan Australia.