Labyrinth

Around the world a growing number of people are working with the labyrinth, an ancient artefact which is fulfilling a renewed role in today's world. This book offers ideas and examples of labyrinths in use in various situations: arts, community and social settings; schools, colleges and universities; a hospice, and a secure hospital; counselling, psychotherapy and well-being; churches, retreats and interfaith contexts.

Labyrinth spillways are almost as old as dam engineering. In spite of the fact that they appear as a very good technical-economical compromise, only 0.1% of large dams are equipped with such weirs. The main reason for this is that traditional labyrinth weirs usually cannot be installed on top of concrete gravity dams as they require a large foundat

Ancient and medieval labyrinths embody paradox, according to Penelope Reed Doob. Their structure allows a double perspective—the baffling, fragmented prospect confronting the maze-treader within, and the comprehensive vision available to those without. Mazes simultaneously assert order and chaos, artistry and confusion, articulated clarity and bewildering complexity, perfected pattern and hesitant process. In this handsomely illustrated book, Doob reconstructs from a variety of literary and visual sources the idea of the labyrinth from the classical period through the Middle Ages. Doob first examines several complementary traditions of the maze topos, showing how ancient historical and geographical writings generate metaphors in which the labyrinth signifies admirable complexity, while poetic texts tend to suggest that the labyrinth is a sign of moral duplicity. She then describes two common models of the labyrinth and explores their formal implications: the unicursal model, with no false turnings, found almost universally in the visual arts; and the multicursal model, with blind alleys and dead ends, characteristic of literary texts. This paradigmatic clash between the labyrinths of art and of literature becomes a key to the metaphorical potential of the maze, as Doob's examination of a vast array of materials from the classical period through the Middle Ages suggests. She concludes with linked readings of four "labyrinths of words": Virgil's Aeneid, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, Dante's Divine Comedy, and Chaucer's House of Fame, each of which plays with and transforms received ideas of the labyrinth as well as reflecting and responding to aspects of the texts that influenced it. Doob not only provides fresh theoretical and historical perspectives on the labyrinth tradition, but also portrays a complex medieval aesthetic that helps us to approach structurally elaborate early works. Readers in such fields as Classical literature, Medieval Studies, Renaissance Studies, comparative literature, literary theory, art history, and intellectual history will welcome this wide-ranging and illuminating book.

In a secret war waged in worlds both virtual and real, the fates of nations depend on the definitive weapon. And that weapon is knowledge—knowledge to die for. . . . The race is heating up between the U.S. and China to develop a quantum computer with infinite capabilities to crack any enemy’s codes, yet keep secure its own secrets. The government that achieves this goal will win a crucial prize. No other computer system will be safe from the reach of this master machine. Dr. Jaron Kwok was working for the U.S. government to build such a computer. But in a posh hotel in Hong Kong, a Chinese policewoman sifts through the bizarre, ashlike remains of what’s left of the doctor. With the clock ticking, alliances will be forged—and there are those who will stop at nothing to discover what the doctor knew. As the search for answers intensifies, it becomes chillingly clear that the quantum computer both sides so desperately want will be more powerful, more dangerous than anyone could have ever imagined. For in the twenty-first century, machines become gods, gods become machines, and the once-impossible now lies within reach. The key to unlimited knowledge will create the ultimate weapon of mass destruction—or humanity’s last chance to save itself. . . . From the Trade Paperback edition.

Dam engineering is currently experiencing a strong revival of labyrinth oriented weirs. Labyrinth weirs, with a repetitive constructional character and an increased specific discharge capacity, are a very good technical-economical compromise. The concept of Piano Key Weir (PKW), with alveoli developed in overhangs from a reduced support area, enables the installation of non-linear crests at the top of concrete dams. As a result it eliminates the main drawback of classical labyrinth weirs, and enables their use to rehabilitate numerous existing dams. Since the first implementation of piano key weirs by Electricité de France on Goulours dam (France) in 2006, at least eight PKWs have been built in France, Vietnam and Switzerland. Their operation over a few years has already provided the first prototype data. Other projects are under study, construction or planning in varied countries. On another hand, research programs are under progress all over the world. Following a first edition in 2011, Labyrinth and Piano Key Weirs II – PKW 2013 collects up-to-date contributions from people with various backgrounds, from engineers and researchers to academics. Summarizing the last developments on labyrinth oriented weirs, the book constitutes the state-of-the-art in research and application of piano key weir solutions, and will be invaluable to professionals and scientists interested in Dams Engineering.

Arihito and his party continue to soar up the ranks in the Labyrinth Country's eighth district, and a chance encounter with the 117th Hidden God, Ariadne, has granted Arihito further enviable abilities as a powerful rearguard. The group prepares to move up to the seventh district, but then crisis strikes: A deadly monster stampede from the nearby labyrinth has turned the town into an impromptu battlefield! Can the top-ranked Arihito and his fellow Seekers slay the monsters and keep the people safe?!

The classic by Latin America's finest writer of the twentieth century—a true literary sensation—with an introduction by cyber-author William Gibson. The groundbreaking trans-genre work of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) has been insinuating itself into the structure, stance, and very breath of world literature for well over half a century. Multi-layered, self-referential, elusive, and allusive writing is now frequently labeled Borgesian. Umberto Eco's international bestseller, The Name of the Rose, is, on one level, an elaborate improvisation on Borges' fiction "The Library," which American readers first encountered in the original 1962 New Directions publication of Labyrinths. This new edition of Labyrinths, the classic representative selection of Borges' writing edited by Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby (in translations by themselves and others), includes the text of the original edition (as augmented in 1964) as well as Irby's biographical and critical essay, a poignant tribute by André Maurois, and a chronology of the author's life. Borges enthusiast William Gibson has contributed a new introduction bringing Borges' influence and importance into the twenty-first century.