LSU Faculty Published Books

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1927 and the Rise of Modern America

2010
Charles J. Shindo

When Charles Lindbergh landed at LeBourget Airfield on May 21, 1927, his transatlantic flight symbolized the new era-not only in aviation but also in American culture. The 1920s proved to be a transitional decade for the United States, shifting the nation from a production-driven economy to a consumption-based one, with adventurous citizens breaking new ground even as many others continued clinging to an outmoded status quo.

In his new book, Charles Shindo reveals how one year in particular encapsulated the complexity of this transformation in American culture. Shindo's absorbing look at 1927 shatters the stereotypes of the Roaring '20s as a time of frivolity and excess, revealing instead a society torn between holding on to its glorious past while trying to navigate a brave new world. His book is a compelling and entertaining dissection of the year that has come to represent the apex of 1920s culture, combining references from popular films, music, literature, sports, and politics in a captivating look back at change in the making.

As Shindo notes, while Lindbergh's flight was a defining event, there were others: The Jazz Singer, for example, brought sound to the movies, and the 15 millionth Model T rolled off of Ford's assembly line. Meanwhile, the era's supposed live-for-today frivolity was clouded by Prohibition, the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, and the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. Such events, Shindo explains, reflected a fundamental disquiet running beneath the surface of a nation seeking to accommodate and understand a broad array of changes--from new technology to natural disasters, from women's forays into the electorate to African-Americans' migration to the urban north.

Shindo, however, also notes that this was an era of celebrity. He not only examines why Lindbergh and Ford were celebrated but also considers the rise and growing popularity of the infamous, like convicted murderers Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray, and he illuminates the explosive growth of professional sports and stars like baseball's Babe Ruth. In addition, he takes a close look at cinematic heroines like Mary Pickford and the "It" girl Clara Bow to demonstrate the conflicting images of women in popular culture.

Distinctive and insightful, Shindo's richly detailed analysis of 1927's key events and personalities reveals the multifaceted ways in which people actually came to grips with change and learned to embrace an increasingly modern America.
Activities for Elementary School Social Studies

2010
James W. Stockard

Revised edition of the invaluable guidebook for developing interest, meaning, and true understanding in the classroom! According to Piaget, all higher-order thinking skills have their bases in activities involving concrete manipulation and observation. The third edition of this highly regarded collection of social studies activities, now with new contributing author Mary Margaret Wogan, continues to be based on the premise that children learn best through experiences and activities learning by doing. It features new activities for each social studies category (geography, history, anthropology, sociology, economics, political science, and interdisciplinary). Three important additions to the key elements of the easy-to-follow activity format make it easier for instructors to meet standards-based curriculum requirements:

- A detailed treatment of National Council of Social Studies standards addressed

- Specific multiple intelligences addressed (This concept is reinforced by a new multiple intelligences section in the back of the book)

- Useful Web site(s) for group/individual research (URLs for sites that will expand or enrich the learning experience for the activity)

By engaging pupils in meaningful, worthwhile social studies activities, instructors can emphasize the processes of learning rather than the products, resulting in a richly rewarding experience for pupils and teacher alike.
Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery via Logic-Based Methods: Theory, Algorithms, and Applications

2010
Evangelos Triantaphyllou

The importance of having ef cient and effective methods for data mining and kn- ledge discovery (DM&KD), to which the present book is devoted, grows every day and numerous such methods have been developed in recent decades. There exists a great variety of different settings for the main problem studied by data mining and knowledge discovery, and it seems that a very popular one is formulated in terms of binary attributes. In this setting, states of nature of the application area under consideration are described by Boolean vectors de ned on some attributes. That is, by data points de ned in the Boolean space of the attributes. It is postulated that there exists a partition of this space into two classes, which should be inferred as patterns on the attributes when only several data points are known, the so-called positive and negative training examples. The main problem in DM&KD is de ned as nding rules for recognizing (cl- sifying) new data points of unknown class, i. e. , deciding which of them are positive and which are negative. In other words, to infer the binary value of one more attribute, called the goal or class attribute. To solve this problem, some methods have been suggested which construct a Boolean function separating the two given sets of positive and negative training data points.
Elements of Environmental Engineering: Thermodynamics and Kinetics

2010
Kalliat T. Valsaraj

Revised, updated, and rewritten where necessary, but keeping the clear writing and organizational style that made previous editions so popular, Elements of Environmental Engineering: Thermodynamics and Kinetics, Third Editioncontains new problems and new examples that better illustrate theory. The new edition contains examples with practical flavor such as global warming, ozone layer depletion, nanotechnology, green chemistry, and green engineering. With detailed theoretical discussion and principles illuminated by numerical examples, this book fills the gaps in coverage of the principles and applications of kinetics and thermodynamics in environmental engineering and science.

New topics covered include:

Green Chemistry and Engineering Biological Processes Life Cycle Analysis Global Climate Change

The author discusses the applications of thermodynamics and kinetics and delineates the distribution of pollutants and the interrelationships between them. His demonstration of the theoretical foundations of chemical property estimations gives students an in depth understanding of the limitations of thermodynamics and kinetics as applied to environmental fate and transport modeling and separation processes for waste treatment. His treatment of the material underlines the multidisciplinary nature of environmental engineering.

This book is unusual in environmental engineering since it deals exclusively with the applications of chemical thermodynamics and kinetics in environmental processes. The book's multimedia approach to fate and transport modeling and in pollution control design options provides a science and engineering treatment of environmental problems.
Computational Science ICCS 2009, Part I

2009
Gabrielle Allen

"There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a tri?ing investment of fact. " Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi The challenges in succeeding with computational science are numerous and deeply a?ect all disciplines. NSF's 2006 Blue Ribbon Panel of Simulation-Based 1 Engineering Science (SBES) states 'researchers and educators [agree]: com- tational and simulation engineering sciences are fundamental to the security and welfare of the United States. . . We must overcome di?culties inherent in multiscale modeling, the development of next-generation algorithms, and the design. . . of dynamic data-driven application systems. . . We must determine better ways to integrate data-intensive computing, visualization, and simulation. - portantly,wemustoverhauloureducationalsystemtofostertheinterdisciplinary study. . . The payo?sformeeting these challengesareprofound. 'The International Conference on Computational Science 2009 (ICCS 2009) explored how com- tational sciences are not only advancing the traditional hard science disciplines, but also stretching beyond, with applications in the arts, humanities, media and all aspects of research. This interdisciplinary conference drew academic and industry leaders from a variety of ?elds, including physics, astronomy, mat- matics,music,digitalmedia,biologyandengineering. Theconferencealsohosted computer and computational scientists who are designing and building the - ber infrastructure necessary for next-generation computing. Discussions focused on innovative ways to collaborate and how computational science is changing the future of research. ICCS 2009: 'Compute. Discover. Innovate. ' was hosted by the Center for Computation and Technology at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Computational Science ICCS 2009, Part II

2009
Gabrielle Allen

"There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a tri?ing investment of fact. " Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi The challenges in succeeding with computational science are numerous and deeply a?ect all disciplines. NSF's 2006 Blue Ribbon Panel of Simulation-Based 1 Engineering Science (SBES) states 'researchers and educators [agree]: com- tational and simulation engineering sciences are fundamental to the security and welfare of the United States. . . We must overcome di?culties inherent in multiscale modeling, the development of next-generation algorithms, and the design. . . of dynamic data-driven application systems. . . We must determine better ways to integrate data-intensive computing, visualization, and simulation. - portantly,wemustoverhauloureducationalsystemtofostertheinterdisciplinary study. . . The payo?sformeeting these challengesareprofound. 'The International Conference on Computational Science 2009 (ICCS 2009) explored how com- tational sciences are not only advancing the traditional hard science disciplines, but also stretching beyond, with applications in the arts, humanities, media and all aspects of research. This interdisciplinary conference drew academic and industry leaders from a variety of ?elds, including physics, astronomy, mat- matics,music,digitalmedia,biologyandengineering. Theconferencealsohosted computer and computational scientists who are designing and building the - ber infrastructure necessary for next-generation computing. Discussions focused on innovative ways to collaborate and how computational science is changing the future of research. ICCS 2009: 'Compute. Discover. Innovate. ' was hosted by the Center for Computation and Technology at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Draculas, Vampires, and Other Undead Forms: Essays on Gender, Race, and Culture

2009
John Edgar Browning

Since the publication of Dracula in 1897, Bram Stoker's original creation has been a source of inspiration for countless artists, writers, and filmmakers. From Universal's early black-and-white films to Hammer's Technicolor representations, iterations of Dracula have become cemented in mainstream cinema. This anthology investigates and explores the far larger body of work that has reinvented Dracula from sources beyond such films.
Lifespan Perspectives on Natural Disasters: Coping with Katrina, Rita, and Other Storms

2009
Katie E. Cherry

Some of our most disturbing images of Hurricane Katrina involve the very old, trapped in flooded nursing homes, and the very young, sick in toxic trailers. Using the Katrina-Rita nexus as its reference point, Lifespan Perspectives on Natural Disasters takes the developmental long view on human strengths and vulnerabilities during large-scale devastation and crisis. An expert panel of behavioral scientists and first responders analyzes the psychological impact of natural disasters on--and coping faculties associated with--children, adolescents, and young, middle-aged, older, young-old and late-life oldest-old adults. This timely information is invaluable both to mental health service providers and to those tasked with developing age-appropriate disaster preparedness, intervention, and recovery programs. In addition, the book references other deadly storms as well as other major catastrophic events (e.g., the September 11 attacks, the Indian Ocean Tsunami), and includes such topics as:

Young children's understanding of hurricanes. Positive adjustment in youth after Katrina. How families make meaning out of disaster. Disaster recovery in the workplace. Recovery services for the frail elderly. Coping and health in late life. Preparation and training mental health personnel for disasters.

Unique in the disaster literature, Lifespan Perspectives on Natural Disasters serves as a research reference and idea book for professionals and graduate-level students in psychology, social work, and disaster preparedness and services.
The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara & Lenin Play Chess

2009
Andrei Codrescu

This is a guide for instructing posthumans in living a Dada life. It is not advisable, nor was it ever, to lead a Dada life." --The Posthuman Dada Guide

The Posthuman Dada Guide is an impractical handbook for practical living in our posthuman world--all by way of examining the imagined 1916 chess game between Tristan Tzara, the daddy of Dada, and V. I. Lenin, the daddy of communism. This epic game at Zurich's Café de la Terrasse--a battle between radical visions of art and ideological revolution--lasted for a century and may still be going on, although communism appears dead and Dada stronger than ever. As the poet faces the future mass murderer over the chessboard, neither realizes that they are playing for the world. Taking the match as metaphor for two poles of twentieth- and twenty-first-century thought, politics, and life, Andrei Codrescu has created his own brilliantly Dadaesque guide to Dada--and to what it can teach us about surviving our ultraconnected present and future. Here dadaists Duchamp, Ball, and von Freytag-Loringhoven and communists Trotsky, Radek, and Zinoviev appear live in company with later incarnations, including William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Gilles Deleuze, and Newt Gingrich. The Posthuman Dada Guide is arranged alphabetically for quick reference and (some) nostalgia for order, with entries such as "eros (women)," "internet(s)," and "war." Throughout, it is written in the belief "that posthumans lining the road to the future (which looks as if it exists, after all, even though Dada is against it) need the solace offered by the primal raw energy of Dada and its inhuman sources.
Philosophy Through Video Games

2009
Jon Cogburn

How can Wii Sports teach us about metaphysics?

Can playing World of Warcraft lead to greater self-consciousness?

How can we learn about aesthetics, ethics and divine attributes from
Zork, Grand Theft Auto, and Civilization?

A variety of increasingly sophisticated video games are rapidly overtaking books, films, and television as America's most popular form of media entertainment. It is estimated that by 2011 over 30 percentnbsp;of US households will own a Wii console - about the same percentage that owned a television in 1953.

In Philosophy Through Video Games, Jon Cogburn and Mark Silcox - philosophers with game industry experience - investigate the aesthetic appeal of video games, their effect on our morals, the insights they give us into our understanding of perceptual knowledge, personal identity, artificial intelligence, and the very meaning of life itself, arguing that video games are popular precisely because they engage with longstanding philosophical problems.

Topics covered include:

* The Problem of the External World

* Dualism and Personal Identity

* Artificial and Human Intelligence in the Philosophy of Mind

* The Idea of Interactive Art

* The Moral Effects of Video Games

* Games and God's Goodness

Games discussed include:

Madden Football, Wii Sports, Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft, Sims Online, Second Life, Baldur's Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, Elder Scrolls, Zork, EverQuest Doom, Halo 2, Grand Theft Auto, Civilization, Mortal Kombat, Rome: Total War, Black and White, Aidyn Chronicles
Perilous Place, Powerful Storms: Hurricane Protection in Coastal Louisiana

2009
Craig E. Colten

The hurricane protection systems that failed New Orleans when Katrina roared on shore in 2005 were the product of four decades of engineering hubris, excruciating delays, and social conflict. In Perilous Place, Powerful Storms, Craig E. Colten traces the protracted process of erecting massive structures designed to fend off tropical storms and examines how human actions and inactions left the system incomplete on the eve of its greatest challenge.

Hurricane Betsy in 1965 provided the impetus for Congress to approve unprecedented hurricane protection for the New Orleans area. Army Engineers swiftly outlined a monumental barrier network that would not only safeguard the city at the time but also provide for substantial growth. Scheduled for completion in 1978, the project encountered a host of frustrating delays. From newly imposed environmental requirements to complex construction challenges, to funding battles, to disputes over proper structures, the buffer envisioned for southeast Louisiana remained incomplete forty years later as Hurricane Katrina bore down on the city.

As Colten reveals, the very remedies intended to shield the city ultimately contributed immensely to the residents' vulnerability by encouraging sprawl into flood-prone territory that was already sinking within the ring of levees. Perilous Place, Powerful Storms illuminates the political, social, and engineering lessons of those who built a hurricane protection system that failed and serves as a warning for those guiding the recovery of post-Katrina New Orleans and Louisiana.
Trap Doors and Trojan Horses: An Auditing Action Adventure

2009
D. Larry Crumbley

In this educational novel, the famous forensic accountant, Lenny Cramer, has joined the accounting faculty at Georgia State University. In addition to his professorial duties, he is conducting an operational audit for the international soft drink company, Coca-Cola. Espionage and fraud place Lenny's life on the line as he uncovers a scheme to steal Coke's secret formula. The story features a variety of settings, from Washington, D.C. to Poland.

As an expert in his field, Professor Cramer uses his forensic auditing knowledge to assist the Coca-Cola Company, his students, the U.S. Congress, and the legal system as an expert witness. With his assistant, Slam Duncan, an accounting Ph.D. student, he puts state-of-the-art technology to work to solve audit problems in the real world.

Trap Doors and Trojan Horses may be used near the end of an auditing or beginning of a data processing course. It would be ideal for an MBA program that has a light coverage of accounting or used in CPA firms' in-house training programs.

This educational novel illustrates the differences between a regular audit and the investigation required by forensic accountants to uncover computer fraud. Every business executive should read it, because just as termites never sleep, fraud never sleeps. And just like termites, fraud can destroy the foundation of an entity.

The novel mixes fraud, crime, politics, ethics, computer techniques, expert witnessing, and auditing for a better and easier way to learn accounting. If used as a supplement to an auditing, forensic accounting, fraud examination, or a computer course, this exciting novel provides a painless way to learn auditing principles. The suspenseful story combines computer and auditing concepts in a fashion even a novice can understand and enjoy. With computer fraud losses reaching $300 billion per year, accountants must be familiar with electronic auditing.
Anthology of American Folktales and Legends

2009
Frank de Caro

For folklorists, students, as well as general readers, this is the most comprehensive survey of American folktales and legends currently available. It offers an amazing variety of American legend and lore - everything from Appalachian Jack tales, African American folklore, riddles, trickster tales, tall tales, tales of the supernatural, legends of crime and criminals, tales of women, and even urban legends.The anthology is divided into three main sections - Native American and Hawaiian Narratives, Folktales, and Legends - and within each section the individual stories explore the myriad narrative traditions and genres from various geographic regions of the United States. Each section and tale genre is introduced and placed in its narrative context by noted folklorist Frank de Caro. Tale type and motif indexes complete the work.
Electronic Records in the Manuscript Repository

2009
Elizabeth H. Dow

Electronic Records in the Manuscript Repository defines the problems related to electronic records and digital documents, describes the steps the curator should take to manage those electronic records and digital documents, and suggests ways to learn the specific skills and perspectives needed to do the job well.

It provides an introduction to vocabulary, basic concepts, and best practices to date by collecting and contextualizing data from several real-world projects, and it contains almost 30 pages of references to resources that the curator can consult for information on specific topics. Dow starts with a review of archival concepts, including a look at archival practices, and then discusses the problems created by electronic materials in that context, as well as the research in progress to tackle these problems.
Conversations with Samuel R. Delany

2009
Carl Freedman

A key figure in modern science fiction and fantasy, Samuel R. Delany (b. 1942) is also one of the most acclaimed figures in contemporary literary theory and gay/lesbian literature. As a gay African American writer, Delany's cerebral, experimental prose crosses lines of genre, gender, sexuality, and class. Several of his works--Dhalgren, The Einstein Intersection, Babel-17, Stars in My Pocket like Grains of Sand, and the Nevèrÿon quartet are considered landmarks of ""new wave"" science fiction. His essays and critical works approach a wide variety of subjects from a perspective that is both resolutely philosophical and deeply provocative.

Conversations with Samuel R. Delany collects interviews with the writer from 1980 to 2007. Delany considers the interview an especially fruitful form for the generation of ideas, and he has made it an integral part of his own work. In fact, two of his critical works are collections of interviews and correspondence. He insists that all interviews with him be written correspondence so that he is allowed the time and space to deliberate on each response. As a result, the conversations presented here are as rigorously constructed, elusive, and intellectually stimulating as his essays.
Wanted: The Outlaw in American Visual Culture

2009
Rachel Hall

Assembling a rich archive of images and texts from the eighteenth century to the present, Rachel Hall offers a history of the "wanted" poster, examining its uses, patterns of circulation, and formal development as an iconic print genre. Her narrative covers a wide range of images: execution broadsides, runaway slave notices, private detective posters, FBI posters, artists' approximations, and the depiction of key figures in the "war on terror." Hall's cultural analysis has profound implications for our understanding of contemporary American fantasies of vulnerability, projection of enemies around the world, and adoption of security measures in domestic and foreign policy.

Wanted will appeal not only to students and scholars in literary studies, cultural studies, and art history but also to readers more generally interested in society's outlaws and in the test of wills between law enforcement and criminal evasion.
Journalism's Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting

2009
John Maxwell Hamilton

In all of journalism, nowhere are the stakes higher than in foreign news-gathering. For media owners, it is the most difficult type of reporting to finance; for editors, the hardest to oversee. Correspondents, roaming large swaths of the planet, must acquire expertise that home-based reporters take for granted?facility with the local language, for instance, or an understanding of local cultures. Adding further to the challenges, they must put news of the world in context for an audience with little experience and often limited interest in foreign affairs?a task made all the more daunting because of the consequence to national security.

In Journalism?s Roving Eye , John Maxwell Hamilton?a historian and former foreign correspondent?provides a sweeping and definitive history of American foreign news reporting from its inception to the present day and chronicles the economic and technological advances that have influenced overseas coverage, as well as the cavalcade of colorful personalities who shaped readers? perceptions of the world across two centuries.

From the colonial era?when newspaper printers hustled down to wharfs to collect mail and periodicals from incoming ships?to the ongoing multimedia press coverage of the Iraq War, Hamilton explores journalism?s constant?and not always successful?efforts at ?dishing the foreign news,? as James Gordon Bennett put it in the mid-nineteenth century to describe his approach in the New York Herald. He details the highly partisan coverage of the French Revolution, the early emergence of ?special correspondents? and the challenges of organizing their efforts, the profound impact of the non-yellow press in the run-up to the Spanish-American War, the increasingly sophisticated machinery of propaganda and censorship that surfaced during World War I, and the ?golden age? of foreign correspondence during the interwar period, when outlets for foreign news swelled and a large number of experienced, independent journalists circled the globe. From the Nazis? intimidation of reporters to the ways in which American popular opinion shaped coverage of Communist revolution and the Vietnam War, Hamilton covers every aspect of delivering foreign news to American doorsteps.

Along the way, Hamilton singles out a fascinating cast of characters, among them Victor Lawson, the overlooked proprietor of the Chicago Daily News, who pioneered the concept of a foreign news service geared to American interests; Henry Morton Stanley, one of the first reporters to generate news on his own with his 1871 expedition to East Africa to ?find Livingstone?; and Jack Belden, a forgotten brooding figure who exemplified the best in combat reporting. Hamilton details the experiences of correspondents, editors, owners, publishers, and network executives, as well as the political leaders who made the news and the technicians who invented ways to transmit it. Their stories bring the narrative to life in arresting detail and make this an indispensable book for anyone wanting to understand the evolution of foreign news-gathering.

Amid the steep drop in the number of correspondents stationed abroad and the recent decline of the newspaper industry, many fear that foreign reporting will soon no longer exist. But as Hamilton shows in this magisterial work, traditional correspondence survives alongside a new type of reporting. Journalism?s Roving Eye offers a keen understanding of the vicissitudes in foreign news, an understanding imperative to better seeing what lies ahead.
Information Systems Outsourcing: Enduring Themes, Global Challenges, and Process Opportunities

2009
Rudy A. Hirschheim

Three years have passed since the second edition of this book was published. The field of IT outsourcing continues to grow in practice as well as in academia and draws further attention in both domains. Aspects of traditional outsourcing (Part II) have remained pronounced but are becoming more mature. While o- sourcing determinants are still important, they are now of less interest to researchers. Relationship management (Chap. 1) and capability management (Chap. 2) continue to be of interest; so too are outsourcing outcomes (Chap. 3) and, as a new focus, innovation aspects (Chap. 4). These are motivating more and more research activities, complementing the lifecycle of traditional o- sourcing. We note significant growth in the field of IT offshoring (Part II). In our third edition, we offer research results on offshoring patterns and trends (Chap. 5), the crucial aspect of knowledge sharing (Chap. 6), vibrant examples for offshoring dynamics (Chap. 7), and some new contributions on the deter- nants of offshoring success (Chap. 8). The last part of our book investigates the field of business process outsourcing (Part III). In this section, issues such as standardization, process outsourcing to India and deinstitutionalization patterns in the health-care sector are presented. Given these new subjects, we believe that Enduring Themes, Global Challenges, and Process Opportunities is an appropriate subtitle for this third edition of the monograph. Again, we have thoughtfully compiled contem- rary outsourcing research as a primer and a platform for scientific discourse.
Toward a Credible Pacifism: Violence and the Possibilities of Politics

2009
Dustin Ells Howes

Advocates of pacifism usually stake their position on the moral superiority of nonviolence and have generally been reluctant or unwilling to concede that violence can be an effective means of conducting politics. In this compelling new work, which draws its examples from both everyday experience and the history of Western political thought, author Dustin Ells Howes presents a challenging argument that violence can be an effective and even just form of power in politics. Contrary to its proponents, however, Howes argues that violence is no more reliable than any other means of exercising power. Because of this there is almost always a more responsible alternative. He distinguishes between violent and nonviolent power and demonstrates how the latter can confront physical violence and counter its claims. This brand of pacifism gives up claims to moral superiority but recuperates a political ethic that encourages thoughtfulness about suffering and taking responsibility for our actions.
Sermons From a Southern Rabbi

2009
Charles David Isbell

Every Shabbat in synagogues around the world and across America, sermons from the local rabbi are an important component of worship. This book brings together thirty-five sermons preached to the congregation of a typical small southern city, Lake Charles, Louisiana. Included are several sermons based upon the weekly parashah (assigned biblical portion from the Pentateuch), a series of messages brought during the high holy days (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) of 2007, three funeral sermons, a special Yom ha-Sho'ah (Holocaust-memorial) address, and a short talk about freedom, given on July 4, 2008. Each message represents the author's attempt to link the concerns of the modern world back to the classical, biblical roots of the Jewish faith, thereby invoking the principles of biblical faith to serve as guidelines in the twenty-first century.
Hurricanes of the Gulf of Mexico

2009
Barry D. Keim

"The storm has entered the Gulf." For those who live or travel near the Gulf of Mexico, this ominous announcement commands attention, especially given the frequency and force of hurricane strikes in recent years. Since 2004, the shores around the Gulf of Mexico have been in the crosshairs for an increasing number of hurricanes and tropical storms, including Charley and Wilma in southwestern Florida and Ivan, Dennis, Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and Ike along the northern Gulf coast from Panama City to near Galveston. In this definitive guide, climatologists Barry D. Keim and Robert A. Muller examine the big picture of Gulf hurricanes -- from the 1800s to the present and from Key West, Florida, to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula -- providing an extraordinary compilation and interpretation of the entire region's hurricane and tropical storm history.
Drawing from their own research and from National Hurricane Center records, Keim and Muller examine numerous individual Gulf storms, considering each hurricane's origin, oceanic and atmospheric influences, seasonality, track, intensity, size, point of landfall, storm surge, and impact on life, property, and the environment. They describe the unique features of the Gulf that influence the development of hurricanes, such as the loop current and its eddies, and identify areas of the coastline that are more or less vulnerable because of physical environment, socioeconomic environment, or both. They point out that the increase in population along the Gulf Coast over the past century has led to a rise in hurricane damage as once sparse coastlines are now lined with residents, commerce, and industry. In addition, they assess predicted hurricane activity for coming years in light of competing climate theories as well as cyclical patterns over the past century.
Keim and Muller begin their book by scrutinizing the Gulf's deadliest storm, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, whose victims received little to no warning of its approach. They then retrace 2005's Hurricane Katrina, the most costly storm, using NHC advisories and reports. Their comparison of these two catastrophic events shows that despite 105 years of tremendous technological advances, hurricanes remain ultimately rather unpredictable and human warning, readiness, and response measures continue to be imperfect. Keim and Muller also detail other memorable Gulf storms -- the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, Audrey, Betsy, Camille, Gilbert, Andrew, Wilma, and more -- and give the hurricane strike records from 1901 to 2005 at thirty locations around the Gulf. They extend the New Orleans hurricane strike record back to the middle of the nineteenth century, providing key insight into comparisons of storm activities during the two centuries.
An epilogue summarizes the destructive 2008 hurricane season, including storms Dolly, Gustav, and Ike. Plentiful maps, charts, tables, graphs, and photos, along with anecdotal observations and an informative text, make Hurricanes of the Gulf of Mexico a captivating and useful volume for Gulf residents, storm trackers, or anyone fascinated by the weather.
Cocktail: A Play About the Life and HIV Drug Development Work of Dr. Krisana Kraisintu

2009
Vincent J. LiCata

Dr. Krisana Kraisintu was awarded the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award for public service, Asia's equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize, in July 2009.

Cocktail is a play about one woman's audacious crusade to fight the AIDS epidemic and the pharmaceutical industry's unyielding control over lifesaving drugs. Scientist-activist Dr. Krisana Kraisintu, a Thai national, defied politicians, patents, and restrictions to give the world its first generic "cocktail" pill for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Her generic drugs changed the course of HIV in her native Thailand and later in Africa, but brought her into direct conflict with some of the world's leading drug manufacturers.

The play powerfully dramatizes the worldwide explosion of AIDS and Dr. Krisana's visionary work, from her research in a windowless storage room mixing and combining toxic raw materials in grueling solitary toil, to her confrontation with corporate greed and political corruption, and ultimately to her single-handedly saving millions of lives.

Cocktail is a mesmerizing experience of Kraisintu's life that is in turns spine chilling, lyrical, heartbreaking, and funny, yet ultimately humbling and inspiring.
Approaches to Teaching Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Other Works

2009
John Lowe

Zora Neale Hurston emerged as a celebrated writer of the Harlem Renaissance, fell into obscurity toward the end of her life, yet is now recognized as a great American author. Her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is popular among general readers and is widely taught in universities, colleges, and secondary schools. A key text of African American and women's literature, it has also been studied by scholars interested in the 1930s, small-town life, modernism, folklore, and regionalism, and it has been viewed through the lenses of dialect theory, critical race theory, and transnational and diasporan studies.

Considering the ubiquity of Hurston's work in the nation's classrooms, there have been surprisingly few book-length studies of it. This volume helps instructors situate Hurston's work against the various cultures that engendered it and understand her success as short story writer, playwright, novelist, autobiographer, folklorist, and anthropologist. Part 1 outlines Hurston's publication history and the reemergence of the author on the literary scene and into public consciousness. Part 2 first concentrates on various approaches to teaching Their Eyes , looking at Hurston's radical politics and use of folk culture and dialect; contemporary reviews of the novel, including contrary remarks by Richard Wright; Janie's search for identity in Hurston's all-black hometown, Eatonville; and the central role of humor in the novel. The essays in part 2 then take up Hurston's other, rarely taught novels, Jonah's Gourd Vine , Moses, Man of the Mountain , and Seraph on the Suwanee . Also examined here are Hurston's anthropological works, chief among them Mules and Men , a staple for many years on American folklore syllabi, and Tell My Horse , newly reconsidered in Caribbean and postcolonial studies.
Constructions of Strict Lyapunov Functions

2009
Michael Malisoff

Converse Lyapunov function theory guarantees the existence of strict Lyapunov functions in many situations, but the functions it provides are often abstract and nonexplicit, and therefore may not lend themselves to engineering applications. Often, even when a system is known to be stable, one still needs explicit Lyapunov functions; however, once an appropriate strict Lyapunov function has been constructed, many robustness and stabilization problems can be solved through standard feedback designs or robustness arguments. Non-strict Lyapunov functions are often readily constructed.

This book contains a broad repertoire of Lyapunov constructions for nonlinear systems, focusing on methods for transforming non-strict Lyapunov functions into strict ones. Their explicitness and simplicity make them suitable for feedback design, and for quantifying the effects of uncertainty. Readers will benefit from the authors' mathematical rigor and unifying, design-oriented approach, as well as the numerous worked examples.
German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race, and Scholarship

2009
Suzanne L. Marchand

Nineteenth-century studies of the Orient changed European ideas and cultural institutions in more ways than we usually recognize. "Orientalism" certainly contributed to European empire-building, but it also helped to destroy a narrow Christian-classical canon. This carefully researched book provides the first synthetic and contextualized study of German Orientalistik, a subject of special interest because German scholars were the pace-setters in oriental studies between about 1830 and 1930, despite entering the colonial race late and exiting it early. The book suggests that we must take seriously German orientalism's origins in Renaissance philology and early modern biblical exegesis and appreciate its modern development in the context of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century debates about religion and the Bible, classical schooling, and Germanic origins. In ranging across the subdisciplines of Orientalistik, German Orientalism in the Age of Empire introduces readers to a host of iconoclastic characters and forgotten debates, seeking to demonstrate both the richness of this intriguing field and its indebtedness to the cultural world in which it evolved.