Most Popular Books by Nicholas Allan

There''s a ghost haunting the hospital! While the staff tremble with fear, brave Timmy Tiger comes up with a daring plan to catch it.

HILLTOP HOSPITAL - RAG WEEK AT HILLTOP It''s rag week at Hilltop and all the staff are rushing around raising money for chairty - except lazy Dr Atticus! He''s ''busy'' pretending to be a patient, lazing on a hospital bed. But oops! the brake releases and Dr Atticus is sent hurling through the hospital and into a pond, causing chaos where he goes. . . . . . .

HILLTOP HOSPITAL - FIRE ALERT Things heat up at Hilltop when a fire breaks out. Luckily, the bizarre supplies that had been delivered to the hospital earlier that day come in very handy when evacuating patients. But will the duck recovering from the wind operation pluck up the nerve to fly again and save the people trapped on the top floor. . ?

Nicholas Allan is well-known for two things; firstly for the being the wonderfully funny author of such children''s bestsellers asThe Queen''s Knickers. Secondly, for being able to gatecrash even the most exclusive of parties. It''s a skill that has brought him into contact with the great, the good and the greedy—from Mick Jagger to Princess Anne. It''s allowed him to drink Tattinger champagne at the Savoy, nibble Caviar canapes in private members clubs, and swap stories with Captains of Industry. The secret is all in the technique. Witty, subversive and a fantastic gift, Nicholas'' essential handbook is your passport to a more glamorous way of life.

Something big is happening at Hilltop Hospital - an elephant has been brought in to have a baby! The team also have to deal with her little boy who doesn''t want a little brother or sister knocking around demanding all the attention. Will the pregnancy run smoothly, and what will the little elephant think of the new arrival?

The hermit had the island all to himself, and that was how he liked it. It was quiet, tidy and peaceful and he was quite content, until the day the bird arrived. The bird was noisy, messy and energetic and just wouldn''t go away. The hermit was furious.

Every kid''s dream to make their parents do exactly what they want is realised in the anarchic new novel from the bestselling creator of the picture book classic, The Queen''s Knickers.

This commentary will consider how I have developed and applied a number of compositional techniques, particularly in the area of rhythm and pulse, which I situate in relationship to postminimalism. In chapter 1 I contextualise my music by considering some manifestations of postminimalism, give the background to the development of my present aesthetic approach, and look at some definitions of postminimalism in order to clarify my own position in relation to both American and European (primarily Dutch) postminimal composition. In chapter 2 I examine the main aspects of my musical language, focussing on technical considerations in relation to the wider aesthetic context. In chapter 3, I will demonstrate how specific techniques, particularly rhythmic and permutational techniques, are applied in particular compositions, and how these techniques have developed over the last four years. Additionally, I consider how my work is informed by a social/political awareness, and how this has informed my choice of particular compositional strategies.

Depression is associated with a tendency to recall a greater number of overgeneral memories (OGM) and fewer specific memories. The CaRFAX model (Williams, 2006) poses three mechanisms maintain OGM, but little work has investigated how these mechanisms uniquely relate to OGM beyond the variance they share with each other. There is also a substantial lack of research as to how the mechanisms of the CaRFAX model relate to OGM in typically developing youth, as much research has focused on adult and clinical samples. This study addressed these gaps in the literature by assessing a cross-sectional community youth sample (N = 658) to investigate two mechanisms of the CaRFAX model: executive control and rumination. A written version of the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) was used to measure both the number of OGMs and specific memories recalled. Depression was measured with the Child Depression Inventory-2, rumination was measured with a self-report Repetitive Thinking Questionnaire, and executive control was measured with a verbal fluency task and a self-report measure of effortful control; the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire- Revised. Depression had a positive linear relationship with OGM and a negative linear relationship with specific memories. Both relationships were weak and became non-significant after accounting for age. A non-linear cubic positive relationship was found for OGM to negative cues predicting variance in depression. Over and above the shared variance between CaRFAX mechanisms, verbal fluency and effortful control evidenced no relationship with OGM but positively correlated with memory specificity. Conversely, rumination only related to a higher number of OGMs to negative cues. No interactions were found between rumination and executive control. Findings were interpreted with caution due to the small strength of relationships found. It is suggested that the relationships between depression, OGM/memory specificity, and CaRFAX mechanisms may only be clinically meaningful at high levels of psychopathology.

Adsorption plays an integral role in a variety of fundamentally and technologically important processes such as lubrication, gas separation and purification, wetting behavior, energy storage, heterogenous catalysis, biologically inspired materials, and the theory of phase transitions. As a result, adsorption phenomena are extensively studied in chemistry, physics, and biology each for uniquely different reasons. The homologous series of normal alkanes represent a class of organic molecules that are important in the fuel industry. From a fundamental perspective, the series of normal alkanes provide a route whereby physical and chemical properties relevant to adsorption can be examined with only subtle changes in molecular size and length. The alkanes also exhibit a well-known odd-even effect in some condensed phase physical properties. In the current study, the physical adsorption properties of the normal alkanes (methane-decane) on MgO, graphite, and boron nitride were investigated using volumetric adsorption isotherms and molecular dynamics simulations. This portion of the study focuses on determining the thermodynamics of adsorption as well as predicting the adsorption structures and dynamics. As a secondary study, the chemical adsorption of ethanol was examined on the surface of transition-phase aluminas using volumetric adsorption, temperature-programmed desorption, and inelastic neutron scattering. The purpose of this work was to observe the surface-catalyzed reaction of chemically bound ethanol with Lewis and Brø[oe]nsted acid sites present on the aluminas in-situ. The results of the projects described have significant implications in the design of new materials for gas separation and purification as well as heterogenous catalysis.

The Attentional Blink (AB) refers to a period of approximately 500ms when, following the correct report of a first target (T1), report of a second target (T2) is disrupted. Despite the theoretical basis of this effect remaining contentious, researchers have applied the paradigm to specific populations such as individuals with dyslexia in order to examine the temporal nature of attention within this population. The series of experiments reported in this thesis aimed to develop methods capable of controlling for individual differences in factors potentially unrelated to the AB, which may, however, be interfering with the interpretation of the applied research. This highlighted four factors which could be estimated and controlled in an AB investigation: practice effects, target duration, intertarget interval (ITI), and task foreperiod. Investigation of practice effects suggested that these could be attenuated by providing a sufficiently demanding task. Overall, it appeared that practice led to enhanced task-preparation. Under conditions of high task difficulty, as set by modifying target exposure duration, there was not a significant change in AB accuracy across a series of 700 trials. Target exposure duration was varied to establish target equality between observers. By reducing or extending the exposure duration, target accuracy could be set at a fixed level of correct report between observers. Therefore, speed of processing could be estimated and examined between observers; but most importantly, it could be factored out of the AB effect. In a similar manner to target exposure duration, ITI was estimated and controlled. This was most easily estimated using a minimalist AB design using a fixation cross, T1 and a backward mask, and T2 and a backward mask. Utilising the established target exposure duration, the temporal lag between targets could be modified so that T2 accuracy was set to a criterion level. Task foreperiod, the time between fixation offset and T1 onset, was equated in similar fashion. The AB pattern could now be estimated with inter-target lags set to fixed proportions of the value established in the step controlling for ITI. In estimating and controlling for each of these factors, a task preparatory model of the AB was necessary to adequately account for a significantly attenuated AB effect when foreperiod was held constant. Two factors were found to be critical: the development of ''task-set'', defined as opting to complete one task over another; and ''perceptual-set'', defined as preparation to receive the physical attributes of the to-be-processed stimuli including modality and intensity as well as spatial and temporal location. The conclusion of the investigation posits that in commonly applied AB methodologies, there are a number of factors unrelated to the AB effect which, when unaccounted for, contaminate the effect. If valid conclusions regarding group differences in the AB per se are going to be established, these unrelated factors should be ruled out as sources of between group differences.

Anachronistic appropriation of earlier music or musical styles creates an inherent conflict of temporalities. Ravel''s compositions based on historical dance forms present a particularly rich medium for investigating these kinds of historical tensions. Whether the minuet in Minuet antique (1895), the waltz in La valse (1919-20) and Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911), or the forlane or rigaudon in their respective movements of Le tombeau de Couperin (1914-17), these forms bring with them associations regarding historical place, and ties between musical norms and expression of temporality. The temporalities expressed in these works are not straightforward linear dramas but rather tension-laden and multifaceted. This paper selects three of these works -- Valses nobles et sentimentales, the forlane from Le tombeau de Couperin, and La valse -- to show how a complex sense of time is expressed by Ravel in different ways. While these three pieces differ greatly in execution, they are similar in impulse: each of the three takes different approaches to intertextual and intratextual problematicization of temporality. In analyzing these three works, the first framework is one of intertextuality -- to what extent does the work connect itself to a specific work, composer, and style, and what structural and aesthetic expectations are brought into play via these connections. Each of the three works treats this question in differing ways -- the "Forlane" of Le tombeau de Couperin explicitly appropriates the music of Couperin, La valse interacts not as much with a specific work or even composer but with the genre of the waltz as a whole, and Valses nobles et sentimentales creates an intentional rift between the waltzes of Ravel and those of Schubert. But while differing in the degree of influence or quotation, each of these draws in expressive and structural prototypes and creates tensions of temporality that are worked through in the context of each piece -- dialects between past and present, conflicts in both structure and meaning. Through entering into dialogical relationships with the works, forms, and genres of the past, these three works gain potentials for expression.