Dynamical Systems and Their Applications in Biology (Fields Institute Communications, V. 36)

Book Description

This volume is based on the proceedings of the International Workshop on Dynamical Systems and their Applications in Biology held at the Canadian Coast Guard College on Cape Breton Island (Nova Scotia, Canada). It presents a broad picture of the current research surrounding applications of dynamical systems in biology, particularly in population biology.

The book contains 19 papers and includes articles on the qualitative and/or numerical analysis of models involving ordinary, partial, functional, and stochastic differential equations. Applications include epidemiology, population dynamics, and physiology.

The material is suitable for graduate students and research mathematicians interested in ordinary differential equations and their applications in biology. Also available by Ruan, Wolkowicz, and Wu is Differential Equations with Applications to Biology, Volume 21 in the AMS series Fields Institute Communications.

Product Description

Journey into Hawai'i's fascinating "secret" places of spiritual and cultural significance. Maps to sites are included. A unique guidebook that provides a tour of Hawai'i never seen by most visitorsand even many locals.

Exploring Lost Hawaii: Places of Power, History, Mystery and Magic

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Encounters With Beauty In Hawaii
This book made my vacation incredible!

Exploring Lost Hawaii: Places of Power, History, Mystery and Magic
Ellie Crowe
Manufacturer: University of Hawaii Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Guidebooks | Reference & Tips | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 097128850X

Customer Reviews:

Encounters With Beauty In Hawaii.......2002-07-19

What I found particularly fascinating about this book was the way it linked specific places throughout the islands, which can be seen today, with historical lore and people from Hawaii's past. I also enjoyed the way the book brought to life a lot of the mystical, spiritual, side of the Hawaiian geography and tradition. Long ago, when I first visited the beautifully desolate northwest coast of the big island of Hawaii, I had this strange sense that I was not alone. After reading this book, I realize that I, indeed, was not. The spirits of Kamehameha the great, and other warriors of Hawaii's past, live on here.

This book made my vacation incredible!.......2002-07-15

This is a great book full of beautiful photos. Best of all it guides you to the really interesting places on all the different islands. There are maps, and directions, and under each site stories are told about the site's amazing past. There are interviews with the locals describing their spiritual beliefs regarding the site. You could enjoy this book just to read about Hawaiian history and all the fascinating things that have gone on in these spiritual places. I couldn't put it down.
The book also led me to some really nice places like a blue freshwater pool right by the ocean.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Book Description

Chloe Thomas is going to the prom. Of course, she doesn't have a date, she needs a dress, and she's the last person anyone expects to see there. But her two oldest friends asked her to go, and she said yes. Right away things start to fall apart. Laura and Jace are too busy with their own preparations to help Chloe, her “real” friends think she's insane, and her parents are so excited that she can't even be in the same room with them. Why on earth did she agree to do this? With drama, humor, and a touch of prom magic, Blake Nelson delivers a story as memorable as prom itself.

Customer Reviews:

blake nelson's best yet!.......2007-06-14

Read prom in one sitting, alot of fun and was laughing out loud through some parts. Some of it was close to the bone and I was blushing in embarrasment but smiling throughout. Not much more you can ask for from a book. The characters are real, are smart and there is something grand and timeless going on behind the situations and comedy. have not yet read paranoid park and heard good things about it but this one deserves a prom reunion!

AMAZING!!!!!.......2006-05-11

This book details three best friends' very different experiences with a landmark American high school event... the prom. Laura is pstched to go for the second time (her boyfriend of 14 months is a senior so she went last year). Jace is nervous/excited about finding a date and hoping to go with the cute, Californian, tennis-playing Paul. And Chloe... she got "convinced" by Jace and Laura to go to the prom. She's bringing a blind date. How will these three girls' experienes pan out? Read this TOTALLY AMAZINGLY SUPER-COOL book and you will find out!! Side note: This book was just so amazing that I read it in under 24 hours (while still putting in a full day of school)... that's how good it is. I'm so excited because Blake Nelson is coming to my school in FOUR days to talk about it!

A perfect novel for young adults........2006-05-11

It's amazing how successfully Blake Nelson captures the thoughts and feelings of your average teenage girls! Not only does he take you inside their minds, but all of his characters are true to life. Nelson's writing style is also very commendable. Loads of times, he had me laughing aloud, even on the train. The language that he uses fits perfectly with the content, and he doesn't overuse slang, like some contemporary writers do. I love how he shows what lies past the stereotypical American high school scene.

(And I promise that I'm not biased because Nelson's married to one of the best English teachers I ever had.)

A fun and amusing story about the drama of going to the prom.......2006-03-17

Step One: Dates

Laura has a date for the prom, because she and her boyfriend have been together practically forever. Julia, aka Jace, thinks she might have a date for the prom, if she can ever get up the nerve to put a coherent sentence together in front of Paul, the hot new tennis player. Alternachick Chloe has no intention of going to the prom at all until Laura decides that not only will Chloe go to the prom, she will also pre-screen possible dates for Chloe.

Step Two: Prep

Everyone knows you can't just show up at your prom in any old thing. The dress has to be spectacular, and Laura is going to have that spectacular $349 dress even though she's not allowed to spend more than $200. Chloe emerges from a vintage dress shop as Audrey Hepburn. And Jace? Well, she'll worry about the dress when Paul commits to the prom one way or the other.

Step Three: Prom!

More and more, Laura has felt torn between her boyfriend and her oldest friends. Chloe hasn't even met her date (she did talk to him on the phone once), yet she's written 31 poems about him. Paul finally agrees to go with Jace, though he has some serious reservations --- and I'm not talking about the restaurant kind.

There's a lot of fun and fluff in this novel, but there's also a lot in the way of good friendships and sticking up for the people you care about. Romance and family conflict make this more than just a throwaway book, but it's not going to fry your brain either. Recommended for all promgoers, or for those who wouldn't go to their prom even if you paid them.

--- Reviewed by Carlie Webber

Way better than any Prom-.......2006-03-15

I loved this book, it's one of those that leave you wishing for more-what's going to happen to Chloe and Zach? Will Paul learn how to deal with his mental illness and become the man he is meant to be? What about Laura, is she going to confront Mike about his indiscretion at the prom or just leave him to figure it out for himself? And will Ryan turn out to be the Best Boyfriend Ever? And, Rebecca, will she get a chance to wear that fabulous dress again? God, I hope so.
I felt, at the end of this book, as if I'd known-and loved- these girls all my life. I really liked how different they all were and how much they valued each other's traits-Blake Nelson has, once again, captured beautifully the nuances and importance of fully formed relationships that would (should, at any rate)cause the writers of "Friends" to publicly apologize.
This is a lovely, warm, funny and realistic look at how the friendships and conflicts of youth, with all it's trimmings of burgeoning sex, drugs and the dreaded Proms, impacts all of our lives while retaining a sense of perspective-makes me wish I had paid more attention.
In his fifth book, Blake Nelson has proven himself a major voice among novelists-with his wonderful dialogue, rich characters and near perfect sense of humor, he will, in years to come, be among those favorite writers whose books one can never quite bring oneself to donate.
It's so refreshing to read a YA book that doesn't patronize or sermonize but leaves the reader with a great big smile and a sense of communion with the awkward and important issues of maturity. Nice going, Blake. Thank you.

Book Description

It has been more than ten years since the first edition of this book was published. During this time, our understanding of the interactions between plants and the animals that consume them, as mediated by secondary compounds (allelochemicals) of plants, has grown dramatically.
In the Herbivores: Their Interactions with Secondary Plant Metabolites, Second Edition, only those areas of research where significant progress has been made since 1979 are included, and most of the contributing authors are new. This edition has been split into two volumes due to the vast amount of new material that has been generated on this subject.
Both volumes will be of interest to evolutionary biologists, agriculturists, chemists, biochemists, physiologists, and ecologists.
Volume 1, provides an exhaustive update and review of the chemical and biochemical bases for the role and function of allelochemicals in their defense against herbivores.
Volume 2, scheduled for publication in April 1992, provides a current update of the research on the ecological roles and evolutionary nature of secondary plant metabolites in their interactions among plants and as protective agents against environmental stresses such as consumption by herbivores.

Book Description

This volume advances a new method for the solution of game problems of pursuit-evasion, which efficiently solves a wide range of game problems. In the case of `simple motions' it fully substantiates the classic `parallel pursuit' rule well known on a heuristic level to the designers of control systems. This method can be used for the solution of differential games of group and consecutive pursuit, the problem of complete controllability, and the problem of conflict interaction of a group of controlled objects, both for number under state constraints and under delay of information. These problems are not practically touched upon in other monographs. Some basic notions from functional and convex analysis, theory of set-valued maps and linear control theory are sufficient for understanding the main content of the book. Audience: This book will be of interest to specialists, as well as graduate and postgraduate students in applied mathematics and mechanics, and researchers in the mathematical theory of control, games theory and its applications.

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Erickson is a mad genius.

The Room of Lost Creativity

Sparkling imagery, powerful emotions.

Haunted and haunting

Best Contemporary Fiction Writer Alive

Our Ecstatic Days: A Novel
Steve Erickson
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 074326472X

Customer Reviews:

Erickson is a mad genius........2007-04-04

Just finished Our Ecstatic Days, and it has my head spinning. The separate narratives, the fact that he even has a page-to-page trailing, separate narrative interrupting the main text, the fact that he makes them actually, coherently MEET UP?!
I loved the ride, Mr. Erickson. Saw and heard you read from this one in Berkeley and finally had the chance to sit down and read it.

The Room of Lost Creativity.......2006-09-12

Having read all of Erickson's novels, I would rate this one somewhere in the middle. Having said that, I still think he is the best contemporary author we have. With the exception of the brilliant segment of the Rooms of Lost something or others, I felt this book was a rehash of his past works. But I honestly did not see how he could improve on "The Sea came in at Midnight", so i wasn't let down. If you've never read Erickson, this book might be a good introduction, though i recommend starting with "Days Between Stations" and read them all. Thank you Steve Erickson!!!!!!!!

Sparkling imagery, powerful emotions. .......2006-07-13

Last July, while supervising my department's move into a new building on a scorching Saturday afternoon, I began reading Steve Erickson's book "The Sea Came in at Midnight". It was a luminous, hypnotic novel, full of fantastic imagery and strange logic. I thought, this is my kind of writer.

So I finally got around to reading a second book by Erickson, and it's "Our Ecstatic Days" -- which, it turns out, is kind of a sequel to the previous book, picking up more or less where that one left off. If there's a protagonist of either story, it's Kristin Blumenthal, former cult member, concubine, memory girl, and now mother of three-year-old Kierkegaard (called Kirk). Kristin, who used to be fearless to the point of recklessness, has been reduced to a sniveling mass of fear and paranoia simply by giving birth.

Kirk is a strange little child, demanding and controlling, making odd pronouncements such as "I am a Bright Light." But if the boy is strange, the events that surround him are even stranger. As Kristin and Kirk try to make a comfortable, safe life at the top of a hotel, a lake suddenly springs up in the center of Los Angeles. It grows larger and deeper by the day, swallowing up streets and buildings, inching ever closer to the Blumenthals' hotel room. Kristin, convinced that the lake wants to take Kirk from her, decides to confront the lake at its source. She and Kirk row out to the center of the lake, and she jumps in. When she resurfaces, Kirk is gone.

He has been snatched away by owls.

The delight of Erickson's writing is in stumbling around the corner to discover an unexpected turn of phrase or a fascinatingly nonsensical plot point (the color blue completely vanishes from the earth, for example). Keeping up with the plot -- such as it is -- is hard work, but this isn't the kind of story you should endeavor to understand. On the contrary, it's the kind of story you absorb, like David Mitchell's "Ghostwritten". It's almost like poetry.

That's not to say that it's perfect. Erickson returns again and again to some really awkward metaphors about motherhood and reproductive anatomy (for example, Kristin becomes a dominatrix who tells fortunes by reading the patterns of her menstrual blood in the toilet. Eew!). But as an abstract, very surreal depiction of what loss -- and the fear of loss -- feels like, Erickson mostly succeeds.

"The Sea Came in at Midnight" is a better book, and I'd urge anyone to read it before trying to read this one. But "Our Ecstatic Days" is a more than worthy follow-up, and I recommend it to the initiated or the brave.

Haunted and haunting.......2005-07-26

I had never read nor heard of Steve Erickson until Simon and Schuster asked for permission to use the lyrics for my song "Opal Moon" in his book. Before I gave permission, I requested a copy of a book so I could see what the writing was like. They sent me "Rubicon Beach" -- which I thought was strange and beautiful. Upon reading "Our Esctatic Days", I found that these two books might be companion books (in fact, one chapter is the beginning excerpt from "Rubicon Beach"), both living in the same world. I found the book compelling to read, and for those who have suffered a loss in their life, it will resonate.

Best Contemporary Fiction Writer Alive.......2005-06-25

Erickson is unparalleled in my mind as the greatest contemporary writer alive. As a voracious reader, I am in bookstores frequently. It is a rare visit where I don't check the "E" section of the fiction shelf to see if Erickson's got a new book out. The six year wait between "The Sea Came in at Midnight" and "Our Ecstatic Days" was torture.

I imagine that Erickson's books have a special appeal to those of us who like to think of ourselves as more dialed-in to the vibrations of collective memory than others, but I would be hesitant to categorize his books into a specific genre (e.g. "post-apocolyptic surrealism"). What resonates with me personally about Erickson's books in general, and this one specifically, is their ability to replicate the lucid dream state- where things are both more real and unreal than in waking life. I'm sure the themes mean different things to different people; for me, they represent the possiblities of parallel lives, which is as comforting as it is disconcerting.

Ecstatic Sound: Music and Individuality in the Work of Thomas Hardy (Nineteenth Century (Aldershot, England).)

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Ecstatic Sound: Music and Individuality in the Work of Thomas Hardy (Nineteenth Century (Aldershot, England).)
John Hughes
Manufacturer: Ashgate Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

History & Criticism | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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Brilliant
a fast, enjoyable read.
A very good novel.
but some fat people are clearly stupid.
What?!!!!

The Ecstatic: A Novel
Victor D. Lavalle
Manufacturer: Crown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0609610147
Release Date: 2002-11-12

Book Description

Victor LaValle has already established himself as “one of the most eloquent voices of the approaching century” (Kirkus Reviews), a writer of darkly humorous tales full of haunting beauty, astonishing leaps of imagination, and language that “crackles and hums” (Chicago Tribune). The Ecstatic is LaValle’s debut novel, a startling tale of love, horror, sex, insanity, faith, morbid obesity, and the modern American family.

Something is wrong with Anthony—our 318-pound hero—and it’s getting worse. A monster has caught his uncle and his mother; now it wants Anthony. Mental illness has been transmitted through his family’s blood. The three women in his life—his mother, younger sister, and grandmother—find him naked and disoriented in his off-campus college apartment and take him home to Queens, each determined to fix him in her own peculiar way. But his presence soon turns their house into a semisuburban asylum.

Sweet but wickedly sarcastic, smart and heartbreakingly vulnerable, Anthony narrates his family’s surreal adventures through a world of grinning exploitation and fake cures, from storefront evangelists and neighborhood loan sharks to bogus beauty pageants and bootleg medical clinics. He corresponds with a dreadlocked Japanese militant, is haunted by a vicious pack of dogs, and tries to make his own horror movie, all in search of an answer to a question he doesn’t dare ask. Written in the tradition of misfit picaresques from Journey to the End of the Night and Invisible Man to A Confederacy of Dunces and The World According to Garp, The Ecstatic is the revelatory story of a family trying to save themselves from a ravenous world and their own unraveling minds.

Customer Reviews:

Brilliant.......2005-11-18

Victor Lavalle is an incredible writer, and I was eager to read his first novel after thoruoghly enjoying his collection of short stories, Slapboxing with Jesus. This book is absolutely brilliant! It takes an extraordinarily talented individual to so effectively blend comedy and tragedy. The use of a first-person narrator to describe an individual's descent into madness is also praiseworthy, as is Lavalle's exploration of the complicated and tenuous ties that bind families together, and how they can so easily be broken.

a fast, enjoyable read........2004-07-28

I have no idea how I came across this book, but I'm glad that I did.

I enjoyed all of the charchters in it, even the ones I'm sure I wasn't supposed to. Everyone is very lively and belivable, even with a few extraordinary quirks thrown in.

I can't give a very detailed review; since it took me just a day or so to read it- and that was about 20 or 25 days ago.

I just wanted to give the author his due (which he has already gotten) and just say something positive aobut his writing... I uses the term 'doofy tooth' for... almost anything now.

A very good novel........2003-12-15

I read this bood after hearing a short interview with Lavalle on NPR, so I may have had more information about the characters (and Lavalle's own life) than is actually in the book, but I really liked it. The book is first person from the perspective of Anthony, not just his thoughts and observations, but his deepest thoughts, the ones that we don't usually share. In Anthony's case, he often shares those thoughts not only with the reader, but also with other characters due to his speaking his mind unintentionaly and due to Lavalle's wonderful writting talents, which make this fit without giving the reader pryor notice as to the fact that Anthony is speaking and not just thinking.

but some fat people are clearly stupid........2003-10-12

What exactly do people expect from literature? To be portrayed in a "positive" light. To be made to look good to the rest of the world? How terribly insecure. While there have probably been "nicer" fat main characters than Anthony from this novel, there have rarely been more complex ones. See, people sometimes treat novels like they're supposed to be cheerleaders. One of the points that was made in a bunch of articles about Victor LaValle is that he used to be over three hundred pounds. So if he doesn't know what it's like to be a fatso, who does? Just because he makes it seem funny sometimes doesn't mean that he's being insulting. While I've never met Oprah (what on earth does that have to do with anything?) I can say that I've read a great novel about a complicated, wise and powerfully developed character. I notice that this person below, who was so offended by the portrayal of fat people, didn't really pipe up about the portrayal of the mentally ill. Perhaps he or she hasn't ever struggled with that problem and therefore feels free to laugh at them, but heaven forbid we laugh at her. (And I'll out myself, I'm a former student of Victor's--class of 99!-and want to defend a great book from simple minds.) Congratulations Professor LaValle

What?!!!!.......2003-10-03

This book pissed me off!!!!

I didn't get that the character was suffering from a mental disorder I just thought he was plain...straight up stupid. The book truly made no sense to me. The only reason I finished the book because the back drop was my home Jamaica, Queens and I love to read books that take place around my way.

Book Description

When Henry David Thoreau died in 1862, friends and admirers remembered him as an eccentric man whose outer life was continuously fed by deeper spiritual currents. But scholars have since focused almost exclusively on Thoreau's literary, political, and scientific contributions. This book offers the first in-depth study of Thoreau's religious thought and experience. In it Alan D. Hodder recovers the lost spiritual dimension of the writer's life, revealing a deeply religious man who, despite his rejection of organized religion, possessed a rich inner life, characterized by a sort of personal, experiential, nature-centered, and eclectic spirituality that finds wider expression in America today. At the heart of Thoreau's life were episodes of exhilaration in nature that he commonly referred to as his ecstasies. Hodder explores these representations of ecstasy throughout Thoreau's writings--from the riverside reflections of his first book through Walden and the later journals, when he conceived his journal writing as a spiritual discipline in itself and a kind of forum in which to cultivate experiences of contemplative non-attachment. In doing so, Hodder restores to our understanding the deeper spiritual dimension of Thoreau's life to which his writings everywhere bear witness.

Customer Reviews:

We can learn much from this outstanding man.......2004-01-31

Most people learn about Thoreau through his books "Walden" and "Civil Disobedience" but the purpose of this book is to provide a spiritual biography and an insight into his religious and spiritual thoughts and experience. Thoreau has been many things to many people but of himself he wrote "The fact is I am a mystic - a transcentalist - and a natural philosopher to boot." As an outspoken critic of institutional religious life, Thoreau was no friend of organized religion, but nevertheless he was a religious person. Emerson wrote of him: "Whilst he used in his writings a certain petulance of remark in reference to churches or churchmen, he was a person of rare, tender, and absolute religion, a person incapable of any profanation, by act or by thought ... Thoreau was sincerity itself, and might fortify the convictions of prophets in the ethical laws by his holy living. It was an affirmative experience which refused to be set aside. A truth-speaker he, capable of the most deep and strict conversations; a physician to the wounds of any soul; a friend knowing not only the secret of friendship, but almost worshipped by those few persons who resorted to him as their confessor and prophet, and knew the deep value of his mind and great heart. He thought that without religion or devotion of some kind, nothing great was ever accomplished: and he thought that the bigoted sectarian had better bear this in mind."

1851 was a watershed in Thoreau's life, having weathered the formative years of the 1840s, full of experiments and false starts and when he lost his brother and sister. He helped runaway slaves escape to Canada and criticized the Massachusetts authorities for being unchristian by returning captured slaves to the south. He had turned 34, found that he was not suited to school teaching, was already feeling his age and a loss of elasticity of both mind and body. Already in the autumn of his life, he wanted to write but had to turn to other jobs to survive. Having acquired a surveyor's compass, work was coming in and he was being paid for what he enjoyed most - being outside where he could study Concord's natural history. Emerson encouraged him in his literary ambition and the next seven years were to be of tremendous literary achievement.

The author refers frequently to Thoreau's religious experiences to be found in "A Week" - especially 'Sunday' and 'Monday' - in "Walden", "Cape Cod", the journal, and essays such as "Life without Principle" and "Walking". Thoreau was one of those outstanding people from whom we can learn much; his was a life well lived. This book will be of especial interest to those who believe that nothing great will ever be accomplished without religion or devotion of some kind but who have not found what they are looking for in organized religion.

An essential perspective........2002-01-14

From a lit-crit perspective, an important distinction has to be made between Thoreau himself and his work. From a religious studies perspective, this distinction isn't as important, and we can speak of things like "Thoreau's own ecstatic wittness," as Hodder does, emphasizing the reflexive possessive. The real challenge for a Thoreau reader in Lit. class is to separate the work from the notion of Thoreau as MEANING something about himself in the work. This is difficult because he speaks in the first person, really went to Walden, and certainly believed many of his ideas. However, making this distinction between Thoreau and Thoreau's literary first person is also essential because Walden is a work of literature and as such contains a persona, a stylized voice, a structural integrity and an artistic vision in which the "I" plays an essential but not necessarily personal role. Fortunately, plenty of authors have already examined Thoreau's aesthetic sensibility, and Alan Hodder takes us in a new direction.

What Hodder does from a religious studies perspective is just as important, and also essential to deepening a literary reading of Thoreau's corpus. In fact, the Lit-Crit aesthetic perspective alone completely misses the ecstatic perspective of Thoreau's inter-religious first person voice. Arguably, Thoreau's "I" is his ecstatic witness, or rather the persona of an ecstatic witness. Hodder traces the sources of this ecstasy. This work has long been needed.

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The Ecstatic World of John Cowper Powys
Harald William Fawkner
Manufacturer: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

20th Century | British | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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British | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0838632491

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Our Ecstatic Days: A Novel
Steve Erickson
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MC0XS0

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