Ayo And His Pencil

Part of a series of readers for young African students and consisting of stories from all over Africa, the Level 1 starters are picture books for children who have just begun to read for themselves. In this story Ayo drops his pencil at school when he is playing. Can he find it again?

Developed for use alongside the JAWS Starters and similar books for primary-school pupils, this teacher's handbook offers advice on choosing starter readers, activities for reading groups, planning lessons, evaluating progress, and how pupils can develop reading fluency by reading for pleasure.

The theoretical part of this monograph examines the distribution of the spectrum of operator polynomials, focusing on quadratic operator polynomials with discrete spectra. The second part is devoted to applications. Standard spectral problems in Hilbert spaces are of the form A-λI for an operator A, and self-adjoint operators are of particular interest and importance, both theoretically and in terms of applications. A characteristic feature of self-adjoint operators is that their spectra are real, and many spectral problems in theoretical physics and engineering can be described by using them. However, a large class of problems, in particular vibration problems with boundary conditions depending on the spectral parameter, are represented by operator polynomials that are quadratic in the eigenvalue parameter and whose coefficients are self-adjoint operators. The spectra of such operator polynomials are in general no more real, but still exhibit certain patterns. The distribution of these spectra is the main focus of the present volume. For some classes of quadratic operator polynomials, inverse problems are also considered. The connection between the spectra of such quadratic operator polynomials and generalized Hermite-Biehler functions is discussed in detail. Many applications are thoroughly investigated, such as the Regge problem and damped vibrations of smooth strings, Stieltjes strings, beams, star graphs of strings and quantum graphs. Some chapters summarize advanced background material, which is supplemented with detailed proofs. With regard to the reader’s background knowledge, only the basic properties of operators in Hilbert spaces and well-known results from complex analysis are assumed.

Encompassing many different visions of Africa, the stories in this comprehensive collection feature characters struggling to survive grinding poverty, tyrannical governments, cultural upheavals, and disintegrating relationships. Reflecting a continent with a tragic history, An African Quilt depicts a place where even everyday life is extraordinary, and the continent’s history changes what it means to be a woman, an employee, a couple, a passerby, and, of course, a citizen. Revealed through the backdrop of postcolonial Africa, the struggles within these stories resonate beyond their context and appeal to every reader’s sense of what it means to be human. Includes Stories by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nadine Gordimer (Winner of the Nobel Prize), Bessie Head, Doris Lessing (Winner of the Nobel Prize), Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Others

* Provides an elegant introduction to the geometric concepts that are important to applications in robotics * Includes significant state-of-the art material that reflects important advances, connecting robotics back to mathematical fundamentals in group theory and geometry * An invaluable reference that serves a wide audience of grad students and researchers in mechanical engineering, computer science, and applied mathematics

Lean, louche and loaded, Dan is boss of his own multi-million pound computer tech company at the tender age of thirty-six. A charmed life, you might say... except that someone wants him dead. He's been shrugging off the hate mail that keeps appearing in his inbox. After all, you don't get to the top without making a few enemies – disgruntled former employees, business rivals, the husbands and boyfriends of his many lovers... Oh, and there's the small matter of that Sicilian deal in which he seriously upset the Mafia... The Police are getting nowhere with the case – but when he's introduced to beautiful Financial Analyst Holly, Dan finds he's met his match. Her incisive mind is piqued as Dan's hate mail evolves into death threats and a passionate romance develops as it dawns on them both that Dan's been flirting with fate in the form of a sinister and deadly cabal of Middle Eastern terrorists.

The aim of the series is to present new and important developments in pure and applied mathematics. Well established in the community over two decades, it offers a large library of mathematics including several important classics. The volumes supply thorough and detailed expositions of the methods and ideas essential to the topics in question. In addition, they convey their relationships to other parts of mathematics. The series is addressed to advanced readers wishing to thoroughly study the topic. Editorial Board Lev Birbrair, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, Brasil Victor P. Maslov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia Walter D. Neumann, Columbia University, New York, USA Markus J. Pflaum, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA Dierk Schleicher, Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany

Offers an overview of state of the art passive macromodeling techniques with an emphasis on black-box approaches This book offers coverage of developments in linear macromodeling, with a focus on effective, proven methods. After starting with a definition of the fundamental properties that must characterize models of physical systems, the authors discuss several prominent passive macromodeling algorithms for lumped and distributed systems and compare them under accuracy, efficiency, and robustness standpoints. The book includes chapters with standard background material (such as linear time-invariant circuits and systems, basic discretization of field equations, state-space systems), as well as appendices collecting basic facts from linear algebra, optimization templates, and signals and transforms. The text also covers more technical and advanced topics, intended for the specialist, which may be skipped at first reading. Provides coverage of black-box passive macromodeling, an approach developed by the authors Elaborates on main concepts and results in a mathematically precise way using easy-to-understand language Illustrates macromodeling concepts through dedicated examples Includes a comprehensive set of end-of-chapter problems and exercises Passive Macromodeling: Theory and Applications serves as a reference for senior or graduate level courses in electrical engineering programs, and to engineers in the fields of numerical modeling, simulation, design, and optimization of electrical/electronic systems. Stefano Grivet-Talocia, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Circuit Theory at the Politecnico di Torino in Turin, Italy, and President of IdemWorks. Dr. Grivet-Talocia is author of over 150 technical papers published in international journals and conference proceedings. He invented several algorithms in the area of passive macromodeling, making them available through IdemWorks. Bjørn Gustavsen, PhD, is a Chief Research Scientist in Energy Systems at SINTEF Energy Research in Trondheim, Norway. More than ten years ago, Dr. Gustavsen developed the original version of the vector fitting method with Prof. Semlyen at the University of Toronto. The vector fitting method is one of the most widespread approaches for model extraction. Dr. Gustavsen is also an IEEE fellow.