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Artificial Neural Networks in Cancer Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Patient Management
by R. N. G. Naguib G. V. SherbetThe potential value of artificial neural networks (ANN) as a predictor of malignancy has begun to receive increased recognition. Research and case studies can be found scattered throughout a multitude of journals. Artificial Neural Networks in Cancer Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Patient Management brings together the work of top researchers - primaril
Artificial or Constructed Wetlands: A Suitable Technology for Sustainable Water Management
by María del Durán-Domínguez-de-Bazúa Amado Enrique Navarro-Frómeta Josep M. BayonaArtificial or constructed wetlands are an emerging technology particularly for tropical areas with water scarcity. For big cities, the sustainable management of water resources taking into account proper use is always challenging. The book presents case studies illustrating the above. As plants and microorganisms are a fundamental part of the correct functioning of these systems, their contribution to the degradation of the organic matter and to the removal and transformation of the pollutant compounds present in the wastewaters is also a highlight of this book.
Artificial Reefs: Marine and Freshwater Applications
by Frank M. D'itriIn this book fisheries biologists, ecologists, limnologists, oceanographers, aquatic resource managers and planners, commercial fisherman and environmental scientists are offered information on the latest artificial fishing reef designs, siting and placement methods, and ecological research as well as an overview of current united states legislation and regulations.
Artificial Riboswitches: Methods and Protocols (Methods in Molecular Biology #1111)
by Atsushi OgawaArtificial riboswitches and other ligand-responsive gene regulators make it possible to switch protein synthesis ON or OFF with arbitrary ligand molecules. Artificial Riboswitches: Methods and Protocols focuses on the state-of-the-art methods developed in recent years for creating artificial riboswitches, therefore this volume could be regarded as a collection of recipes for the gene circuit elements in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering. Chapters cover topics such as screening or rational design methods for obtaining artificial riboswitches that function in either bacterial or eukaryotic translational systems, protocols for evaluating the activities of the resultant riboswitches, as well as protocols for construction of ligand-dependent, trans-acting gene regulators. Written in the successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible protocols, and notes on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and easily accessible, Artificial Riboswitches: Methods and Protocols seeks to serve not only bioengineers who aim to reprogram cell behaviors and molecular biologists who leverage these regulators for genetic studies, but to all researchers interested in this fascinating field.
Artificial Satellites and How to Observe Them (Astronomers' Observing Guides)
by Richard Schmude Jr.Every amateur astronomer - and many non-astronomers - will be familiar with seeing a "star" that shows that characteristic steady slide across the starry background of the sky. Artificial satellites can be seen any night, and some as bright as the planets. But how many of us can identify which satellites or spent launch vehicle casing we are seeing? Artificial Satellites and How to Observe Them describes all the different satellites that can be observed without optical aid, including of course the International Space Station and the many spy satellites operated by different nations. Richard Schmude looks at them in detail and describes how they can be observed by amateurs, how to recognize them, and even how to predict their orbits. Artificial satellites have changed since the beginning of the millenium. Several additional countries have launched them. And amateur astronomers have utilized digital cameras in order to image satellites to a resolution of about three feet. This book describes how to recognize, observe, and image satellites. Examples of recent images and how they were made are given. It also offers up-to-date descriptions of the many satellites that are orbiting the Earth and other celestial bodies. Readers can learn how satellites impact our day-to-day lives. In short, Artificial Satellites and How to Observe Them is a detailed and up-to-date overview of artificial satellites and how to study them in the night sky.
Artificial Whiteness: Politics and Ideology in Artificial Intelligence
by Yarden KatzDramatic statements about the promise and peril of artificial intelligence for humanity abound, as an industry of experts claims that AI is poised to reshape nearly every sphere of life. Who profits from the idea that the age of AI has arrived? Why do ideas of AI’s transformative potential keep reappearing in social and political discourse, and how are they linked to broader political agendas?Yarden Katz reveals the ideology embedded in the concept of artificial intelligence, contending that it both serves and mimics the logic of white supremacy. He demonstrates that understandings of AI, as a field and a technology, have shifted dramatically over time based on the needs of its funders and the professional class that formed around it. From its origins in the Cold War military-industrial complex through its present-day Silicon Valley proselytizers and eager policy analysts, AI has never been simply a technical project enabled by larger data and better computing. Drawing on intimate familiarity with the field and its practices, Katz instead asks us to see how AI reinforces models of knowledge that assume white male superiority and an imperialist worldview. Only by seeing the connection between artificial intelligence and whiteness can we prioritize alternatives to the conception of AI as an all-encompassing technological force.Bringing together theories of whiteness and race in the humanities and social sciences with a deep understanding of the history and practice of science and computing, Artificial Whiteness is an incisive, urgent critique of the uses of AI as a political tool to uphold social hierarchies.
Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind
by Susan SchneiderA sober-minded philosophical exploration of what AI can and cannot achieveHumans may not be Earth’s most intelligent beings for much longer: the world champions of chess, Go, and Jeopardy! are now all AIs. Given the rapid pace of progress in AI, many predict that it could advance to human-level intelligence within the next several decades. From there, it could quickly outpace human intelligence. What do these developments mean for the future of the mind?In Artificial You, Susan Schneider says that it is inevitable that AI will take intelligence in new directions, but urges that it is up to us to carve out a sensible path forward. As AI technology turns inward, reshaping the brain, as well as outward, potentially creating machine minds, it is crucial to beware. Homo sapiens, as mind designers, will be playing with "tools" they do not understand how to use: the self, the mind, and consciousness. Schneider argues that an insufficient grasp of the nature of these entities could undermine the use of AI and brain enhancement technology, bringing about the demise or suffering of conscious beings. To flourish, we must grasp the philosophical issues lying beneath the algorithms.At the heart of her exploration is a sober-minded discussion of what AI can truly achieve: Can robots really be conscious? Can we merge with AI, as tech leaders like Elon Musk and Ray Kurzweil suggest? Is the mind just a program? Examining these thorny issues, Schneider proposes ways we can test for machine consciousness, questions whether consciousness is an unavoidable byproduct of sophisticated intelligence, and considers the overall dangers of creating machine minds.
Artificially Controllable Nanodevices Constructed by DNA Origami Technology: Photofunctionalization and Single-Molecule Analysis (Springer Theses)
by Yangyang YangIn this book, the author deals mainly with two topics: (1) single-molecule visualization of switching behaviors in the DNA nanoframe system utilizing different kinds of molecular switches through the use of high-speed atomic force microscope (AFM); (2) construction of photocontrollable DNA nanostructures in programmed patterns and direct visualization of the dynamic assembling process. Here, high-speed AFM was employed to observe the dynamic movements of single molecules. Compared to a traditional single-molecule analysis method, such as fluorescence spectroscopy or electron microscopy, high-speed AFM makes possible the real-time observation of molecule behaviors. DNA nanostructures were designed and assembled as scaffolds to incorporate interested biomolecules. The observations were carried out under robust conditions without complicated pretreatment. Moreover, the photoresponsive molecules were successfully assembled into around 100 nm-sized DNA nanostructures. The assembly/disassembly of nanostructures can be regulated reversibly by photoirradiation. This book explains how DNA origami has gradually become a useful tool for the investigation of biochemical interactions in defined nanospace. It also shows the possibility of DNA nanostructures acting as nanodevices for application in biological systems, serving as a good introduction to basic DNA nanotechnology.
The Artist and the Mathematician
by Amir AczelNicolas Bourbaki, whose mathematical publications began to appear in the late 1930s and continued to be published through most of the twentieth century, was a direct product as well as a major force behind an important revolution that took place in the early decades of the twentieth century that completely changed Western culture. Pure mathematics, the area of Bourbaki's work, seems on the surface to be an abstract field of human study with no direct connection with the real world. In reality, however, it is closely intertwined with the general culture that surrounds it. Major developments in mathematics have often followed important trends in popular culture; developments in mathematics have acted as harbingers of change in the surrounding human culture. The seeds of change, the beginnings of the revolution that swept the Western world in the early decades of the twentieth century -- both in mathematics and in other areas -- were sown late in the previous century. This is the story both of Bourbaki and the world that created him in that time. It is the story of an elaborate intellectual joke -- because Bourbaki, one of the foremost mathematicians of his day -- never existed.
Artistic Visions of the Anthropocene North: Climate Change and Nature in Art (Routledge Advances in Art and Visual Studies)
by Gry Hedin Ann-Sofie N. GremaudIn the era of the Anthropocene, artists and scientists are facing a new paradigm in their attempts to represent nature. Seven chapters, which focus on art from 1780 to the present that engages with Nordic landscapes, argue that a number of artists in this period work in the intersection between art, science, and media technologies to examine the human impact on these landscapes and question the blurred boundaries between nature and the human. Canadian artists such as Lawren Harris and Geronimo Inutiq are considered alongside artists from Scandinavia and Iceland such as J.C. Dahl, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Toril Johannessen, and Björk.
Arts and Health Promotion: Tools and Bridges for Practice, Research, and Social Transformation
by J. Hope Corbin Mariana Sanmartino Emily Alden Hennessy Helga Bjørnøy UrkeThis open access book offers an overview of the beautiful, powerful, and dynamic array of opportunities to promote health through the arts from theoretical, methodological, pedagogical, and critical perspectives. This is the first-known text to connect the disparate inter-disciplinary literatures into a coherent volume for health promotion practitioners, researchers, and teachers. It provides a one-stop depository for using the arts as tools for health promotion in many settings and as bridges across communities, cultures, and sectors. The diverse applications of the arts in health promotion transcend the multiple contexts within which health is created, i.e., individual, community, and societal levels, and has a number of potential health, aesthetic, and social outcomes. Topics covered within the chapters include: Exploring the Potential of the Arts to Promote Health and Social Justice Drawing as a Salutogenic Therapy Aid for Grieving Adolescents in Botswana Community Theater for Health Promotion in Japan From Arts to Action: Project SHINE as a Case Study of Engaging Youth in Efforts to Develop Sustainable Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Strategies in Rural Tanzania and India Movimiento Ventana: An Alternative Proposal to Mental Health in Nicaragua Using Art to Bridge Research and Policy: An Initiative of the United States National Academy of Medicine Arts and Health Promotion is an innovative and engaging resource for a broad audience including practitioners, researchers, university instructors, and artists. It is an important text for undergraduate- and graduate-level courses, particularly in program planning, research methods (especially qualitative methodology), community health, and applied art classes. The book also is useful for professional development among current health promotion practitioners, community nurses, community psychologists, public health professionals, and social workers.
The Arts and Humanities on Environmental and Climate Change: Broadening Approaches to Research and Public Engagement
by Sarah SuttonThe Arts and Humanities on Environmental and Climate Change examines how cultural institutions and their collections can support a goal shared with the scientific community: creating a climate-literate public that engages with environmental issues and climate change in an informed way. When researchers, curators, and educators use the arts and humanities to frame discussions about environmental and climate change, they can engage a far wider public in learning, conversation, and action than science can alone. Demonstrating that archival and object-based resources can act as vital evidence for change, Sutton shows how the historical record, paired with contemporary reality, can create more personal connections to what many consider a remote experience: the changing climate. Providing valuable examples of museum collections used in discussions of environmental and climate change, the book shares how historic images and landscape paintings demonstrate change over time; and how documentary evidence in the form of archaeological reports, ships logs, Henry David Thoreau’s journals, and local reports of pond hockey conditions are being used to render climate data more accessible. Images, personal records, and professional documents have critical roles as boundary objects and proxy data. These climate resources, Sutton argues, are valuable because they make climate change personal and attract a public less interested in a scientific approach. This approach is underused by museums and their research allies for public engagement and for building institutional relevancy. The Arts and Humanities on Environmental and Climate Change will be most interesting to readers looking for ways to broaden engagement with environmental and climate issues. The ideas shared here should also act as inspiration for a broad spectrum of practitioners, particularly those writing, designing, and curating public engagement materials in museums, for wider research, and for the media.
Arts Based Health Care Research: A Multidisciplinary Perspective
by Kathryn Hinsliff-Smith Julie McGarry Parveen AliThis book, written by academics across a range of disciplines, including healthcare and social sciences discusses the increasing use of the arts in healthcare research, which often stems from the recognition that for some topics of investigation, or when dealing with sensitive issues, the usual qualitative or quantitative paradigms are not appropriate. While there is undoubtedly a place for such approaches, arts-based research paradigms (ABR) offers, not only additional study and data-collection tools, but also provides a new and enjoyable experience for those involved. The use of the arts as a medium to improve health and wellbeing was well documented by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2019, with over 3,000 studies conducted around the globe on the value of the arts in the prevention of ill health and promotion of health across the life span. This book examines how the arts, in a variety of forms, can be used by those working directly in healthcare settings as well as those involved in research across all health or patient settings. Covering a range of ABR genres, including literature (such as narrative and poetic inquiry); performance (music, dance, play building); visual arts (drawing and painting, collage, installation art, comics); and audio-visual and multimethod approaches, this user- friendly book will appeal to nurses, researchers in nursing and allied healthcare professions, as well professionals in the social sciences, psychosociology, psychology, literature and arts.
Arts Education and Cultural Diversity: Policies, Research, Practices and Critical Perspectives (Yearbook of Arts Education Research for Cultural Diversity and Sustainable Development #1)
by Chee-Hoo Lum Ernst WagnerThis peer-reviewed academic yearbook stems from the inaugural meeting of the newly formed UNESCO UNITWIN network on Arts Education Research for Cultural Diversity and Sustainable Development, held at the National Institute of Education, Singapore in April 2017. It presents international scholarly perspectives on issues related to arts education and cultural diversity in terms of: i) national and international policies; ii) terms, concepts and vocabularies; iii) current and ongoing research; and iv) best practices. The UNESCO UNITWIN is an arts education research think tank that gathers and leverages original research and critical commentaries on the arts and sustainable development from UNITWIN member states and beyond (Australia, Canada, Colombia, Germany, Hong Kong, Kenya, Korea, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, the Netherlands and the United States of America).
Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene
by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing Elaine Gan Heather Anne Swanson Nils BubandtLiving on a damaged planet challenges who we are and where we live. This timely anthology calls on twenty eminent humanists and scientists to revitalize curiosity, observation, and transdisciplinary conversation about life on earth.As human-induced environmental change threatens multispecies livability, Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet puts forward a bold proposal: entangled histories, situated narratives, and thick descriptions offer urgent “arts of living.” Included are essays by scholars in anthropology, ecology, science studies, art, literature, and bioinformatics who posit critical and creative tools for collaborative survival in a more-than-human Anthropocene. The essays are organized around two key figures that also serve as the publication’s two openings: Ghosts, or landscapes haunted by the violences of modernity; and Monsters, or interspecies and intraspecies sociality. Ghosts and Monsters are tentacular, windy, and arboreal arts that invite readers to encounter ants, lichen, rocks, electrons, flying foxes, salmon, chestnut trees, mud volcanoes, border zones, graves, radioactive waste—in short, the wonders and terrors of an unintended epoch.Contributors: Karen Barad, U of California, Santa Cruz; Kate Brown, U of Maryland, Baltimore; Carla Freccero, U of California, Santa Cruz; Peter Funch, Aarhus U; Scott F. Gilbert, Swarthmore College; Deborah M. Gordon, Stanford U; Donna J. Haraway, U of California, Santa Cruz; Andreas Hejnol, U of Bergen, Norway; Ursula K. Le Guin; Marianne Elisabeth Lien, U of Oslo; Andrew Mathews, U of California, Santa Cruz; Margaret McFall-Ngai, U of Hawaii, Manoa; Ingrid M. Parker, U of California, Santa Cruz; Mary Louise Pratt, NYU; Anne Pringle, U of Wisconsin, Madison; Deborah Bird Rose, U of New South Wales, Sydney; Dorion Sagan; Lesley Stern, U of California, San Diego; Jens-Christian Svenning, Aarhus U.
The Arts of the Microbial World: Fermentation Science in Twentieth-Century Japan (Synthesis)
by Victoria LeeThe first in-depth study of Japanese fermentation science in the twentieth century.The Arts of the Microbial World explores the significance of fermentation phenomena, both as life processes and as technologies, in Japanese scientific culture. Victoria Lee’s careful study documents how Japanese scientists and skilled workers sought to use the microbe’s natural processes to create new products, from soy-sauce mold starters to MSG, vitamins to statins. In traditional brewing houses as well as in the food, fine chemical, and pharmaceutical industries across Japan, they showcased their ability to deal with the enormous sensitivity and variety of the microbial world. Charting developments in fermentation science from the turn of the twentieth century, when Japan was an industrializing country on the periphery of the world economy, to 1980 when it had emerged as a global technological and economic power, Lee highlights the role of indigenous techniques in modern science as it took shape in Japan. In doing so, she reveals how knowledge of microbes lay at the heart of some of Japan’s most prominent technological breakthroughs in the global economy. At a moment when twenty-first-century developments in the fields of antibiotic resistance, the microbiome, and green chemistry suggest that the traditional eradication-based approach to the microbial world is unsustainable, twentieth-century Japanese microbiology provides a new, broader vantage for understanding and managing microbial interactions with society.
Arts, Sciences, and Economics: A Historical Safari
by Tönu PuuThis book deals with the economic aspects of changing attitudes in arts and sciences. The effects of the public good character of culture, along with the very long production period and lifetime for its products, are emphasized, since both contribute to the failure of normal market solutions. Embodiment of ideas and the consequences of modern reproduction technology for protection of property rights are closely examined. The evolution within arts and sciences, which often seems to return to previously scrapped ideals, is illustrated by detailed case studies, in which the importance of changing tastes, rather than progress proper, is emphasized. The author attempts an understanding for this using Darwinian evolution in combination with modern mathematical complexity theory, expressed in terms accessible to the general reader. The second edition is extended and updated especially as regards the illustration material.
Artscience: Creativity in the Post-Google Generation
by David EdwardsScientists are famous for believing in the proven and peer-accepted, the very ground that pioneering artists often subvert; they recognize correct and incorrect where artists see only true and false. And yet in some individuals, crossover learning provides a remarkable kind of catalyst to innovation that sparks the passion, curiosity, and freedom to pursue--and to realize--challenging ideas in culture, industry, society, and research. This book is an attempt to show how innovation in the "post-Google generation" is often catalyzed by those who cross a conventional line so firmly drawn between the arts and the sciences. David Edwards describes how contemporary creators achieve breakthroughs in the arts and sciences by developing their ideas in an intermediate zone of human creativity where neither art nor science is easily defined. These creators may innovate in culture, as in the development of new forms of music composition (through use of chaos theory), or, perhaps, through pioneering scientific investigation in the basement of the Louvre. They may innovate in research institutions, society, or industry, too. Sometimes they experiment in multiple environments, carrying a single idea to social, industrial, and cultural fruition by learning to view traditional art-science barriers as a zone of creativity that Edwards calls artscience. Through analysis of original stories of artscience innovation in France, Germany, and the United States, he argues for the development of a new cultural and educational environment, particularly relevant to today's need to innovate in increasingly complex ways, in which artists and scientists team up with cultural, industrial, social, and educational partners.
Arvo Pärt: Sounding the Sacred
by Andrew Shenton Christopher May Andrew Albin Peter C. Bouteneff Maria Cizmic Jeffers Engelhardt Adriana Helbig Paul Hillier Kevin Karnes Alexander Lingas Ivan Moody Robert Saler Toomas Siitan Sevin YaramanScholarly writing on the music of Arvo Pärt is situated primarily in the fields of musicology, cultural and media studies, and, more recently, in terms of theology/spirituality. Arvo Pärt: Sounding the Sacred focuses on the representational dimensions of Pärt’s music (including the trope of silence), writing and listening past the fact that its storied effects and affects are carried first and foremost as vibrations through air, impressing themselves on the human body. In response, this ambitiously interdisciplinary volume asks: What of sound and materiality as embodiments of the sacred, as historically specific artifacts, and as elements of creation deeply linked to the human sensorium in Pärt studies? In taking up these questions, the book “de-Platonizes” Pärt studies by demystifying the notion of a single “Pärt sound.” It offers innovative, critical analyses of the historical contexts of Pärt’s experimentation, medievalism, and diverse creative work; it re-sounds the acoustic, theological, and representational grounds of silence in Pärt’s music; it listens with critical openness to the intersections of theology, sacred texts, and spirituality in Pärt’s music; and it positions sensing, performing bodies at the center of musical experience. Building on the conventional score-, biography-, and media-based approaches, this volume reframes Pärt studies around the materiality of sound, its sacredness, and its embodied resonances within secular spaces.
Aryl Diazonium Salts: New Coupling Agents in Polymer and Surface Science
by Mohamed Mehdi ChehimiDiazonium compounds are employed as a new class of coupling agents to link polymers, biomacromolecules, and other species (e. g. metallic nanoparticles) to the surface of materials. The resulting high performance materials show improved chemical and physical properties and find widespread applications. The advantage of aryl diazonium salts compared to other surface modifiers lies in their ease of preparation, rapid (electro)reduction, large choice of reactive functional groups, and strong aryl-surface covalent bonding. This unique book summarizes the current knowledge of the surface and interface chemistry of aryl diazonium salts. It covers fundamental aspects of diazonium chemistry together with theoretical calculations of surface-molecule bonding, analytical methods used for the characterization of aryl layers, as well as important applications in the field of electrochemistry, nanotechnology, biosensors, polymer coatings and materials science. Furthermore, information on other surface modifiers (amines, silanes, hydrazines, iodonium salts) is included. This collection of 14 self-contained chapters constitutes a valuable book for PhD students, academics and industrial researchers working on this hot topic.
Aryl Diazonium Salts and Related Compounds: Surface Chemistry and Applications (Physical Chemistry in Action)
by Mohamed M. Chehimi Jean Pinson Fatima MousliThis volume provides the latest developments in the field of surface science and technology based on diazonium coupling agents as well as their precursors (e.g. aromatic amines). It presents new concepts of surface chemistry of diazonium salts and discusses their novel and challenging applications. The latest advances on surface modification with diazonium salts are discussed and various promising alternative surface modifiers such as iodonium salts are examined. This book demonstrates the universality of diazonium salts in the surface treatment of classical and emergent materials and it will be a great tool for researcher and graduates working in this field.
Ärztliche Dokumentationspflicht und Einsichtsrecht in Patientenakten: Eine Untersuchung zu den §§ 630f und 630g BGB mit Bezügen zum nationalen sowie europäischen Datenschutzrecht (MedR Schriftenreihe Medizinrecht)
by Thomas BayerDieses Buch analysiert die Rechtslage in Bezug auf Patientenakten in Deutschland. Es behandelt schwerpunktmäßig die ärztliche Dokumentationspflicht, das Einsichtsrecht des Patienten in seine Behandlungsunterlagen sowie Fragen zur gesetzlich vorgeschriebenen Aufbewahrung und Archivierung. Die Darstellung orientiert sich dabei sowohl am neuen Behandlungsvertragsrecht der §§ 630a ff. BGB als auch an den standesrechtlichen Vorgaben der ärztlichen Berufsordnungen. Daneben diskutiert es Lösungsvorschläge für bisher noch offene Rechtsfragen im Bereich des postmortalen Einsichtsrechts der Erben und Angehörigen sowie zum Umgang mit sensiblen Inhalten, die einer Einsichtnahme durch den Patienten im Einzelfall entzogen sind. Ein weiterer Abschnitt behandelt wesentliche Schnittstellen zum nationalen und europäischen Datenschutzrecht, insbesondere zum Auskunftsanspruch nach Art. 15 DSGVO. Erwähnung finden ferner die sozialrechtlichen Regelungen zur Einführung der elektronischen Gesundheitskarte.
As Gods: A Moral History of the Genetic Age
by Matthew CobbThe thrilling and terrifying history of genetic engineering In 2018, scientists manipulated the DNA of human babies for the first time. As biologist and historian Matthew Cobb shows in As Gods, this achievement was one many scientists have feared from the start of the genetic age. Four times in the last fifty years, geneticists, frightened by their own technology, have called a temporary halt to their experiments. They ought to be frightened: Now we have powers that can target the extinction of pests, change our own genes, or create dangerous new versions of diseases in an attempt to prevent future pandemics. Both awe-inspiring and chilling, As Gods traces the history of genetic engineering, showing that this revolutionary technology is far too important to be left to the scientists. They have the power to change life itself, but should we trust them to keep their ingenuity from producing a hellish reality?
As I Recall: Discovering the Place of Memories in Our Spiritual Life
by Casey TygrettWhat if our memories are like shells we gather on a beach? According to pastor and spiritual director Casey Tygrett, "We—and all those who have come before us—pick up the experience and we sense it: we feel its edges, notice its color, we smell the distinctive character (for shells it is the sickly seafood salt smell) of the experience and we try to make sense of what it is. Is it beautiful? How would you describe the color—the tones, the shades, wrapped around the ridges and swirls? Has it been damaged? Does the hard edge scrape our hand, leaving a blemish or a mark?" How we hold and carry these memories—good and bad—is a part of what forms us spiritually. In this way we have a common bond with the people of Scripture who also had a sensory life, gathering shells and trying to make sense of them. In these pages Casey Tygrett explores the power of memory and offers biblical texts and practices to guide us in bringing our memories to God for spiritual transformation.
The As If Principle
by Richard WisemanVictorian philosopher William James had a theory about emotion and behavior: It isn't that our feelings guide our actions (feel happy and you will laugh). On the contrary, it is our actions that guide our emotions (laugh and you will feel happy). This led James to a remarkable conclusion: "If you want a quality, act as if you already have it." Roused by James's astonishing discovery, renowned psychologist and bestselling author Richard Wiseman confirms James's principle and shows how the self-help genre has for too long put the cart before the horse in trying to help us take control of our lives. Bringing to the table a dazzling array of firsthand experiments, surprising histories, and psychological case studies, Wiseman illustrates in brilliant detail how we can apply this principle in our daily lives: --Smile to become measurably happier --Wash your hands to drive away guilt --Clench your fist to increase your willpower --Eat with your non-dominant hand to lose weight --Nod while speaking to become more persuasive --Act like a newlywed to rekindle your marriage Lively, engaging, and truly mind-changing, The As If Principle is that rare gem that offers real, workable solutions for your day-to-day goals while helping you to instantly take control of your emotions. Whether it's quitting a bad habit, persevering through a difficult task, or achieving your dream self, The As If Principle can help. Don't just think about changing your life. Do it.