Most Popular Books by David Yoo

In this hilarious collection of essays, David Yoo exposes the pain--and the absurdities--of coming of age when you''re awkward, insecure, and unable to stop shooting yourself in the foot. In often cringe-inducing episodes, David Yoo perfectly captures the cycle of failure and fear from childhood through adulthood with brutal honesty Whether he''s wearing four layers of clothing to artificially beef up his slim frame, routinely testing highlighters against his forearm to see if he indeed has yellow skin, or preemptively sabotaging promising relationships to avoid being compared to former boyfriends, Yoo celebrates and skewers the insecurities of anxious people everywhere.

Detention The best worst thing to happen to Peter Lee? Peter and his best friend, Drew, used to be so cool (or, at least, not total outcasts) in elementary school. But now they''re in middle school, where their extensive mica collection and prowess at kickball have earned them a new label: losers. Then Peter attracts the unwanted attention of the school bullies, and his plan to become popular through his older sister, the practically perfect Sunny, backfires. Things go from bad to worse when Peter gets detention. But what at first seems to spell his utter doom turns into an unlikely opportunity for making friends and influencing people. . . .

As he reflects back on his life in upscale Renfield, Connecticut, on his high school graduation day, Nick Park wonders how much being the only Asian American in school affected his thwarted quest for popularity and a girlfriend.

If Albert Kim has learned one thing in his tragic adolescence, it''s that God (probably a sadistic teenaged alien) does not want him to succeed at Bern High. By the end of sophomore year, Al is so tired of humiliation that he''s chosen to just forget girls and high school society in general, and enjoy the Zen-like detachment that comes from being an intentional loser. Then he meets Mia Stone, and all the repressed hormones come flooding back. Mia, his co-worker at the Bern Inn, is adorable, popular, and most intimidatingly, the ex- long-term girlfriend of Ivy-bound, muscle-bound king of BHS and world class jerk, Ryan Stackhouse. But -- chalk it up to the magic of Al''s inner beauty /DIV-- by the end of a summer vacuuming hotel rooms and goofing off together, he and Mia are officially “something.” Albert barely has time to ponder this miracle before the bomb drops: Ryan has been diagnosed with cancer, and he needs Mia''s support, i.e. constant companionship. True, he''s lost weight and he’s getting radiation, but that doesn’t make him any less of a jerk. And to Albert, it couldn''t be more apparent that Ryan is using his cancer to steal Mia back. With the whole town rallying behind Ryan like he’s a fallen hero, and Mia emotionally confused and worried for Ryan, Al’s bid for love is not a popular campaign. In fact, it''s exactly like driving the wrong way on a five-lane highway. DIV In this desperately funny novel, David Yoo tells an authentic story of first love, and therein captures the agony, the mania, the kicking and screaming that define teenage existence.

Sam has a problem: his dad doesn’t think he’s “man enough.” So Dad decides he’s going to toughen Sam up by getting a turkey to raise in preparation for Thanksgiving. But no one is prepared for the place Travis the turkey finds in the family, and Sam soon realizes the frightening truth: it’s him, or the turkey. A short story from the acclaimed collection Guys Read: Funny Business, edited by Jon Scieszka.

Contentious Spirits explores the role of religion in Korean American history during the first half of the twentieth century in Hawai''i and California. Historian David K. Yoo argues that religion is the most important aspect of this group''s experience because its structures and sensibilities address the full range of human experience. Framing the book are three relational themes: religion & race, migration & exile, and colonialism & independence. In an engaging narrative, Yoo documents the ways in which religion shaped the racialization of Korean in the United States, shows how religion fueled the transnational migration of Korean Americans and its connections to their exile, and details a story in which religion intertwined with the visions and activities of independence even as it was also entangled in colonialism. The first book-length study of religion in Korean American history, it will appeal to academics and general readers interested in Asian American history, American religious history, and ethnic studies.

This study presents novel reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) methods with mixture of random and interval uncertainties. While conventional second-order reliability method (SORM) contains three types of errors, novel SORM proposed in this study avoids the other two types of error by describing the quadratic failure surface with the linear combination of noncentral chi-square variables and using the linear combination of probability of failure estimation. Sensitivity analysis on the developed SORM is then performed for more accurate RBDO. As an alternative to analytic RBDO, sampling-based RBDO is used in case when gradients of performance functions are not available. In this study, interval uncertainty is newly incorporated into existing sampling-based RBDO, since distribution of random uncertainty may not be always identified. Sensitivity-based interval analysis method is developed, which is integrated into optimization framework. It is demonstrated in numerical example that the proposed method efficiently converges to optimum design within a few design cycles. The RBDO approach is further applied to turbomachinery bladed disk, whose dynamic response is very sensitive to presence of uncertainties when interblade coupling is weak. Multi-objective optimization method is developed for optimal piezoelectric circuitry design to simultaneously achieve delocalization of vibration modes and vibration suppression, which is integrated into the host bladed disk structure. Since piezoelectric material cannot withstand the high temperatures, this method is limited to fan blades that is operated at mild temperatures. Alternatively, this study develops the mathematical framework of reliability-oriented optimal design for bladed disk throughout modification of geometry/material properties of blades utilizing intentional mistuning technique, which is applicable to both compressor blades and high pressure turbine blades that are operated at severe temperatures. Both random uncertainty of blades and interval uncertainty of disk connections are considered. It is demonstrated in case studies that durability and reliability in bladed disk can be achieved using the proposed methods.

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English Abstract: The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) serves to underpin the structural framework and buttress the functional effectiveness of the overarching comprehensive financial stability system in the European Union. The ESM provides financial supports in the cash or non-cash form exclusively for eurozone countries in a situation of economic emergency through various bailout programmes such as loans, precautionary financial assistance, direct and indirect recapitalization, primary market support facility, and secondary market support facility. Specifically, the ESM bailout programmes assist eurozone countries undergoing, or faced with the imminent threat of, an economic crisis in restoring a disrupted or destabilized domestic financial system where there is no available self-help means for dealing with it. An underlying concern over the operation of ESM programmes arises from the perspective of the normative interface between international trade law and international financial law. The controversial question can be raised whether, and how, the mechanics of how the ESM programmes work interacts with the WTO subsidy rules. Consider that a particular ESM bailout programme has a wide range of economic effects that ultimately end in extending over domestic industries and conferring direct or indirect economic benefits upon specific ailing companies and industries. This program, albeit disputably, would be deemed a form of financial contribution by a public body of the EU and further fall within the meaning of a trade-distortive subsidy under the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. With this mind, this article provides a pioneer multidimensional anatomy of legal and regulatory landscape of ESM bailout programmes. Thus, the article is aimed at providing an in-depth investigation of the full spectrum of functional and structural framework of the ESM bailout mechanism and an unprecedented legal analysis of its compatibility with the WTO subsidy rules.

Shares stories about growing up in diverse homes or communities, from an Asian youth who gains temporary popularity by making up a false background, to a biracial girl whose father clears subway seats by calmly sitting between two prejudiced women.