The Pharos Objective

Driven by visions of his dead father, Professor Caleb Crowe reluctantly joins the Morpheus Initiative, a team of remote-viewing archaeologists determined to locate the remains of the seventh Wonder of the Ancient World¿the Pharos Lighthouse¿beneath which the legendary treasure of Alexander the Great is rumored to be hidden. Crowe¿s quest spans two thousand years of visionary history that connects the ashes of Herculaneum and the lost Library of Alexandria with a secret government program and ancient society called The Keepers. To discover a threshold guarded by deadly traps and forgotten prophecies is one thing, but facing the truth about himself is something else altogether.

This comprehensive and insightful book brings scientific rigor to the problems of reconstructing the Pharos Lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and understanding how it functioned as the archetypal lighthouse in antiquity, when it was described as a “second Sun”. Conceived by Alexander the Great and designed by Sostratus, the Pharos lighthouse stood as an iconic landmark of Alexandria for sixteen centuries until felled by a calamitous earthquake in the fourteenth century. The study of this great lighthouse has been neglected relative to other ancient Wonders such as the Great Pyramid of Giza. This book reconstructs the tower, its lustrous light, stunning statues and astounding story in diligent detail through archaeological evidence and surviving antique texts and images, providing a fresh evaluation of the Pharos, its history, and its legacy. The Roman writer Achilles Tatius termed the Pharos a “second Sun”; this expression is explained and explored here for the first time, and has dramatic implications for the nature of the Pharos’ light. The volume also explores how the creation of the Pharos was a key stimulus for Alexandrian science and astronomy in antiquity. The Pharos Lighthouse in Alexandria provides a fascinating new study of this monument of interest to students and scholars of Hellenistic art, architecture, and science, and readers seeking to learn more about one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

With ever-increasing demands on capacity, quality of service, speed, and reliability, current Internet systems are under strain and under review. Combining contributions from experts in the field, this book captures the most recent and innovative designs, architectures, protocols, and mechanisms that will enable researchers to successfully build the next-generation Internet. A broad perspective is provided, with topics including innovations at the physical/transmission layer in wired and wireless media, as well as the support for new switching and routing paradigms at the device and sub-system layer. The proposed alternatives to TCP and UDP at the data transport layer for emerging environments are also covered, as are the novel models and theoretical foundations proposed for understanding network complexity. Finally, new approaches for pricing and network economics are discussed, making this ideal for students, researchers, and practitioners who need to know about designing, constructing, and operating the next-generation Internet.

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina was launched with great fanfare in the 1990s, a project of UNESCO and the Egyptian government to recreate the glory of the Alexandria Library and Museion of the ancient world. The project and its timing were curious—it coincided with scholarship moving away from the dominance of the western tradition; it privileged Alexandria’s Greek heritage over 1500 years of Islamic scholarship; and it established an island for the cultural elite in an urban slum. Beverley Butler’s ethnography of the project explores these contradictions, and the challenges faced by Egyptian and international scholars in overcoming them. Her critique of the underlying foundational concepts and values behind the Library is of equal importance, a nuanced postcolonial examination of memory, cultural revival, and homecoming. In this, she draws upon a wide array of thinkers: Freud, Derrida, Said, and Bernal, among others. Butler’s book will be of great value to museologists, historians, archaeologists, cultural scholars, and heritage professionals.

In Faces of Charisma: Image, Text, Object in Byzantium and the Medieval West, a multi-disciplinary group of scholars advances the theory that charisma may be a quality of art as well as of person.

Progress in Renewable Energies Offshore includes the papers presented in the 2nd International Conference on Renewable Energies Offshore (RENEW2016, Lisbon, Portugal, 24-26 October 2016). The scope of the book is broad, covering all aspects of renewable energies offshore activities such as resource assessment; wind energy; wave energy; tidal energy; ocean energy devices; multiuse platforms; PTO design; grid connection; economic assessment; installation and maintenance planning. The contents of the present book are organized in these main subject areas corresponding to the sessions in the Conference. The conference reflects the importance of the renewable energies offshore worldwide and is an opportunity to contribute to the exchange of information on the developments and experience obtained in concept development, design and operation of these devices. Progress in Renewable Energies Offshore has as main target academics and professionals working in the related areas of renewable energies.

On the Texas border, a brutal massacre threatens to ignite a firestorm of violence that will destabilize an already fragile Mexican government and trigger an international crisis that knows no boundaries. The only clue, a cryptic message: The time for Destiny has arrived! Tam Broderick, leader of an elite CIA task force, code-name: Myrmidon, knows that the Dominion—a quasi-religious extremist group—is behind the attacks; now it’s up to her and her team to find out what the Dominion’s true goals are, and stop them dead in their tracks. From the authors of the bestselling Dane Maddock Adventures and Dane and Bones Origins comes a new series set in the Maddock Universe. Join CIA agent Tamara “Tam” Broderick and her team as they continue their struggle to foil the power of the Dominion. Action, adventure, and thrills abound in The Myrmidon Files