Most Popular Books by Ron Martin

Apples and Oranges is a story taken from the Bible and made new and alive. Its a story that begins with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Eves encounter with the evil serpent, and the eating of the forbidden fruit that would eventually cause Adam and Eves departure from Paradise. Later on in the story we read about Cain and Abel and how Abel was killed by Cain. And still later the adventure of Noah and the ark. The story is somewhat old but made alive with an assortment of special treasures that will keep you captivated throughout. I hope that you enjoy this timeless piece of literature.

A young man postpones a promising sports career and declines college scholarships, instead joining the US Marines to fight a war against an unknown enemy in the lush jungles of Viet Nam. Only after returning home does he discover his military training and skills will be required even more to survive the asphalt jungles of America. With recurring flashbacks to the music and turbulence of the ’60s, he attempts to comprehend the meaning and significance of each traumatic experience, and find some redemption from those extremely memorable occurrences. Deeply conflicted and troubled from the horrors of war, he resurrects his earlier fascination with treetop flying and follows his passionate ambition—to fly in helicopters while helping others. As a flight nurse, ER nurse, EMT, paramedic, and firefighter, he becomes personally and spiritually impacted by increased hospital violence, drugs, tragic deaths, and coping with the horrible consequences of alcohol and its collective effect on society. Meanwhile, hospital administrations have failed to acknowledge or accept responsibility for violence against its employees and spent more energy and resources taking extreme measures to equivocate and deny the problem exists, rather than decisively providing a safe work environment for their staff. His personal experiences and unresolved confrontations with PTSD and depression, death and dying, major trauma and serious illness, betrayal and deceit, opioid dependence and suicide collectively and relentlessly challenge his resolute determination to persevere. But will his strong faith, warm heart, and witty spirit be able to improvise, adapt, and overcome the seemingly insurmountable dark forces? 39

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND KEY RECOMMENDATIONS The nature of the problem: • Geographical inequalities in the UK are a longstanding and persistent problem rooted in deepseated and cumulative processes of local and regional divergence with antecedents in the inter-war years and accelerating since the early 1980s. • This spatial divergence has been generated by the inability of some places to adapt to the emergence of the post-industrial service and knowledge-based economy whose geographies are very different from those of past heavy industries. As a consequence, the "left behind" problem has become spatially and systemically entrenched. • Challenging ideas of market-led adjustment, there is little evidence that real cost advantages in Northern areas are correcting and offsetting the geographically differentiated development of skilled labour and human capital and the quality of residential and business environments. • A variety of different types of "left behind place" exist at different scales, and these types combine common problems with distinctive economic trajectories and varied causes. These different types will need policies that are sensitive and adaptive to their specific problems and potentialities. • Contemporary economic development is marked by agglomeration in high-skilled and knowledge-intensive activities. Research-based concentrations of high-skilled activity in the UK have been limited and concentrated heavily in parts of London and cities in the Golden Triangle, especially Oxford and Cambridge. Even in London, the benefits have been unevenly spread between boroughs. • Existing analyses of the predicaments of left behind places present a stark division between rapid growth in "winning" high-skilled cities and relative decline in "losing" areas. This view is problematic because it oversimplifies the experience in the UK and other countries. A false binary distinction is presented to policymakers which offers only the possibility of growth in larger cities and derived spillovers and other compensations elsewhere. • Yet, the post-industrial economy involves strong dispersal of activity and growth to smaller cities, towns and rural areas. However, this process has been highly selective between local areas and needs to be better understood. The institutional and policy response: • Past policies in the UK have lacked recognition of the scale and importance of the left behind problem and committed insufficient resources to its resolution. The objective of achieving a less geographically unequal economy has not been incorporated into mainstream policymaking. When compared with other countries, the UK has taken an overcentralized, "top-down" approach to policy formulation and implementation, often applying "one size fits all" policy measures to different geographical situations. • Political cycles have underpinned a disruptive churn of institutions and policies. In contrast with other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, particularly in Europe, there has been limited long-term strategy and continuity, and inadequate development of local policymaking capacity and capabilities, especially for research, analysis, monitoring and evaluation. • Past policies have been underfunded, inconsistent, and inadequately tailored and adapted to the needs of different local economies. We estimate that, on average over the period 1961–2020, the UK government invested on average £2.9 billion per annum in direct spatial policy (2020 prices), equivalent to around 0.15% of gross national income (GNI) per annum over the period. European Union Structural and Cohesion Policy support has added around 0.12% GNI (2020 prices) per annum to this over the period from the late 1970s. • These broad estimates suggest that discretionary expenditure in the UK on urban and regional policy when both domestic and European Union spatial policy was in operation was equivalent to 0.27% per annum of UK GNI (2020 prices). This is dwarfed by mainstream spending programmes (by comparison, the UK committed £14.5 billion (0.7% of GNI) to international aid in 2019). The level of resources devoted to spatial policy has been modest given the entrenched and cumulative nature of the problem. • Policies for "levelling up" need clearly to distinguish different types of left behind places and devise a set of place-sensitive and targeted policies for these types of "clubs" of left behind areas. This shift will need a radical expansion of "place-based" policymaking in the UK which allows national and local actors to collaborate on the design of appropriate targeted programmes. • A key priority for "levelling up" is revitalizing Northern cities and boosting their contribution to the national economy. Underperformance in these urban centres has been a major contributor to persistent geographical inequality in the UK. • Addressing the UK’s geographical economic inequalities and the plight of left behind places requires substantially more decentralization of power and resources to place-based agencies. This would enable the current UK government’s "levelling up" agenda to capitalize on the many advantages of more "place-based" policymaking to diagnose problems, build on local capabilities, strengthen resilience and adapt to local changes in circumstances. • Crucially, place-based efforts need to be coordinated and aligned with place-sensitive national policies. The key challenge of a levelling up mission is to integrate "place-based" policies with greater place sensitivity in national policies and in regulation and mainstream economic spending. • It is important to develop policies that spread the benefits from agglomeration and ensure that the income effects and innovations produced by high-skill concentrations diffuse to the wider cityregional economies and their firms (especially small and medium-sized enterprises) and workers. There is a clear need for more policy thinking on how this can be achieved. • Policy for levelling-up needs to align and coordinate with the other national missions for net zero carbon and post-pandemic recovery. This suggests that a strong "place-making" agenda focused on quality of life, infrastructure and housing in many left behind places is important for post-industrial and service growth. • Genuine place-making is a long-term process involving public, private and civic participation which allows local responses to those economic, environmental, and social constraints and problems that most strongly reduce the quality of life in local areas. A truly "total place" approach is required. The quality of infrastructure, housing stock and public services is crucial for the quality of place as well as the ability to secure and attract more dispersed forms of growth. There is little hope of delivering "place-making" if public sector austerity is once again allowed to cut back public services more severely in poorer and more deprived areas. The way forward: • The scale and nature of the UK’s contemporary "left behind places" problem are such that only a transformative shift in policy model and a resource commitment of historic proportions are likely to achieve the "levelling up" ambition that is central to the current government’s political ambitions. KEY RECOMMENDATIONS In summary, our recommendations are that the UK government should: • Grasp the transformative moment for local, regional and urban development policy as the UK adjusts to a post-Covid-19 world and seeks a net zero carbon future. • Establish a clear and binding national mission for "levelling up". • Realize the potential of place in policymaking. • Decentralize and devolve towards a multilevel federal polity. • Strengthen subnational funding and financing and adopt new financing models involving the public, private sector and civic sectors to generate the resources required. • Embed geography in the national state and in national policy machinery. • Improve subnational strategic research, intelligence, monitoring and evaluation capacity. A failure to learn from the lessons of the last 70 years of spatial policy risks the UK becoming an ever more divided nation, with all the associated economic, social and political costs, risks and challenges that this presents.

The busy surgeon will find this unique issue packed with useful, practical information on pancreatic surgery. Topics include the ''borderline resectable'' pancreas, pathologic analysis of pancreatic carcinoma, quality metrics, antimicrobial therapy in severe acute pancreatitis, management of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, operative management of acute pancreatitis, endoscopic evaluation in acute pancreatitis, familial pancreatic cancer and the genetics of pancreatic cancer, diabetes and pancreatic cancer, and much more!

This book is the first comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the New Deal and examines how far the programme has succeeded in responding to the diversity of conditions in local labour markets across the UK. Argues that profound differences in local labour market conditions have exerted a telling influence on the New Deal’s achievements Includes extensive new research data on the current conditions of local labour markets in the UK and local impacts of the New Deal Illustrated by a large series of original maps and figures. Based on numerous interviews with local and regional policy actors.

Human geography is currently undergoing a rapid and far-reaching re-orientation, based on a redefined and much closer relationship with other social sciences. Aimed at a broad student readership, this book focuses on developments in social scientific theory of particular significance in rethinking human geography and on the contribution the geographical imagination can make to good social science.

Since the beginning of the 1980s, British trade unions have experienced a dramatic retreat, marked by rapidly falling membership and declining industrial power. The authors examine the regional dimensions of this retreat of organised labour, paying particular attention to: The resilience of the unions'' historical heartland areas. The impact of economic restructuring on local union traditions. The shrinking landscape of industrial militancy. The geographical decentralization of the new industrial relations. The link between these factors and the more general debate on regional development and regional labour markets. An important synthesis of economic geography and industrial relations work, this book marks a major contribution towards the newly emerging field of labour geography

A biography of Edward II

A progressiva globalização da produção, das finanças e da cultura; os desafios enfrentados pela nação-estado; a importância do ambientalismo; a forma como determinadas regiões e suas identidades cultural e política vêm sendo resgatadas na esteira da internacionalização e do localismo; estes são alguns dos temas de ''Geografia humana'', livro que coloca o leitor a par da drástica reorientação por que vem passando esta disciplina, símbolo da pós-modernidade.

Altered Festival is a mixed-reality adventure highlighting cutting-edge artists and immersive experiences that alter our reality. The festival explores multi-sensory narrative experiences in VR/AR/XR that alter our taste, smell, or other senses.Altered Festival 2020 was held in October 2020 at Redline VR, Chicago. This catalog holds a record of the festival which includes two articles, 13 projects, and an interview. We are honored to have one of our jurors, Ron Martin, to share with us his experience at the festival, his insights as an experience designer. Our festival producer Jiaqi Zhang shared her story about how the collaboration with Redline VR came along. After the festival, she interviewed Aaron Sawyer, the owner of Redline VR, during which Aaron shared anecdotes about running a VR arcade bar in Chicago and the tough situations he faced during a pandemic.

You wouldn''t think a tiny place like Caldwell, Ohio-a village with three traffic lights and a population under 2,000 in the Appalachian foothills --would become a cross country hotbed. But in the 1980''s, a group of determined young runners from this small rural town, defied the odds, fought their way to the top, and went on to be recognized as the best high school boys cross country team in America. Their journey to greatness wasn''t solely based on athleticism. It was fueled by teamwork, commitment to excellence, challenging terrain, mental toughness, and the fearlessness to race against schools 10 times Caldwell''s size. In Too Small to Win you''ll discover the true story of the Caldwell High School boys'' Cross country team''s improbable rise from 1983 through 1986 - the beginning of a dynasty. You''ll learn about the exhilarating highs and heart-wrenching lows of their unforgettable race for greatness and the legacy they left behind. The underdog story is recounted by Coach Ron Martin and the runners who have carried the lessons they learned in cross country into their personal and professional lives. The book also includes Coach Martin''s 10 "keys to success"- those factors that were critical to the team''s remarkable progress. This David-vs.-Goliath tale of triumph over adversity reminds us that size and circumstances alone do not determine our outcomes. Don''t miss this gripping tale of perseverance, grit, and triumph that will leave you awestruck and inspired!

Ramsey, an American soldier in Vietnam, is captured by the enemy, and plans a desperate escape attempt