The Synthesis Effect

For far too many of us, modern life is a struggle. We are stressed, depressed, anxious, addicted, obese, terrified, and angry. Are we doomed to live this way? Dr. John McGrail answers with an emphatic: “No. Anyone and everyone can create the life of their dreams.” In The Synthesis Effect he shows you how, sharing his unique process in an engaging, friendly narrative that includes stories of real people overcoming real issues and empowering their lives quickly and profoundly. The Synthesis Effect will show you: How you became you—your personality, values, feelings, habits, beliefs, and behaviors—how you create your own reality, and why it’s so difficult to change it. That you already have everything you need within you to change and transform your life, and how to use the models, tools, techniques, and exercises of Synthesis to do so. How to reach “practical enlightenment,” living your life virtually free of suffering...and how to pass it on to others. The Synthesis Effect provides simple, powerful, and clinically proven techniques for creating personal change and transformation while outlining a realistic roadmap to help us rediscover our power, save ourselves, and save our planet.

For far too many of us, modern life is a struggle. We are stressed, depressed, anxious, addicted, obese, terrified, and angry. Are we doomed to live this way? Dr. John McGrail answers with an emphatic: "No. Anyone and everyone can create the life of their dreams." In The Synthesis Effect he shows you how, sharing his unique process in an engaging, friendly narrative that includes stories of real people overcoming real issues and empowering their lives quickly and profoundly. The Synthesis Effect will show you: How you became you--your personality, values, feelings, habits, beliefs, and behaviors--how you create your own reality, and why it's so difficult to change it. That you already have everything you need within you to change and transform your life, and how to use the models, tools, techniques, and exercises of Synthesis to do so. How to reach "practical enlightenment," living your life virtually free of suffering...and how to pass it on to others. The Synthesis Effect provides simple, powerful, and clinically proven techniques for creating personal change and transformation while outlining a realistic roadmap to help us rediscover our power, save ourselves, and save our planet.

Praise for the first edition: “The Handbook is a comprehensive treatment of literature synthesis and provides practical advice for anyone deep in the throes of, just teetering on the brink of, or attempting to decipher a meta-analysis. Given the expanding application and importance of literature synthesis, understanding both its strengths and weaknesses is essential for its practitioners and consumers. This volume is a good beginning for those who wish to gain that understanding.” —Chance “Meta-analysis, as the statistical analysis of a large collection of results from individual studies is called, has now achieved a status of respectability in medicine. This respectability, when combined with the slight hint of mystique that sometimes surrounds meta-analysis, ensures that results of studies that use it are treated with the respect they deserve....The Handbook of Research Synthesis is one of the most important publications in this subject both as a definitive reference book and a practical manual.”—British Medical Journal When the first edition of The Handbook of Research Synthesis was published in 1994, it quickly became the definitive reference for researchers conducting meta-analyses of existing research in both the social and biological sciences. In this fully revised second edition, editors Harris Cooper, Larry Hedges, and Jeff Valentine present updated versions of the Handbook’s classic chapters, as well as entirely new sections reporting on the most recent, cutting-edge developments in the field. Research synthesis is the practice of systematically distilling and integrating data from a variety of sources in order to draw more reliable conclusions about a given question or topic. The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis draws upon years of groundbreaking advances that have transformed research synthesis from a narrative craft into an important scientific process in its own right. Cooper, Hedges, and Valentine have assembled leading authorities in the field to guide the reader through every stage of the research synthesis process—problem formulation, literature search and evaluation, statistical integration, and report preparation. The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis incorporates state-of-the-art techniques from all quantitative synthesis traditions. Distilling a vast technical literature and many informal sources, the Handbook provides a portfolio of the most effective solutions to the problems of quantitative data integration. Among the statistical issues addressed by the authors are the synthesis of non-independent data sets, fixed and random effects methods, the performance of sensitivity analyses and model assessments, and the problem of missing data. The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis also provides a rich treatment of the non-statistical aspects of research synthesis. Topics include searching the literature, and developing schemes for gathering information from study reports. Those engaged in research synthesis will also find useful advice on how tables, graphs, and narration can be used to provide the most meaningful communication of the results of research synthesis. In addition, the editors address the potentials and limitations of research synthesis, and its future directions. The past decade has been a period of enormous growth in the field of research synthesis. The second edition Handbook thoroughly revises original chapters to assure that the volume remains the most authoritative source of information for researchers undertaking meta-analysis today. In response to the increasing use of research synthesis in the formation of public policy, the second edition includes a new chapter on both the strengths and limitations of research synthesis in policy debates

Since the turn of the last century when the field of catalysis was born, iron and cobalt have been key players in numerous catalysis processes. These metals, due to their ability to activate CO and CH, haev a major economic impact worldwide. Several industrial processes and synthetic routes use these metals: biomass-to-liquids (BTL), coal-to-liquids (CTL), natural gas-to-liquids (GTL), water-gas-shift, alcohol synthesis, alcohol steam reforming, polymerization processes, cross-coupling reactions, and photocatalyst activated reactions. A vast number of materials are produced from these processes, including oil, lubricants, waxes, diesel and jet fuels, hydrogen (e.g., fuel cell applications), gasoline, rubbers, plastics, alcohols, pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, feed-stock chemicals, and other alternative materials. However, given the true complexities of the variables involved in these processes, many key mechanistic issues are still not fully defined or understood. This Special Issue of Catalysis will be a collaborative effort to combine current catalysis research on these metals from experimental and theoretical perspectives on both heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysts. We welcome contributions from the catalysis community on catalyst characterization, kinetics, reaction mechanism, reactor development, theoretical modeling, and surface science.

Animal Cell Culture nimal cell culture began in 1912 when Alexis Carrel grew bits of chick heart A in vitro by placing them into a drop of horse plasma. When the plasma clotted, it formed a solid surface into which the heart cells explanted. Left unattended, these cells died within several days. By regularly feeding the grow ing cells with aqueous extracts of whole chick embryos and periodically sub dividing them, Carrel was able to maintain the cells for extended periods. From these initial experiments, cell culture has expanded into an important component of biological research and commercial production. Animal cell culture is an important tool for the study of complex biologi cal systems. In vivo it is often impossible to target a treatment to one specific cell type or to adequately control the environment. For example, it is impos sible to selectively depolarize endothelial cells in vivo to determine the role of transmembrane potential in the transduction of fluid mechanical forces generated by blood flow to a biochemical response. Depolarizing all of the cells within the vascular system by injecting potassium chloride into the animal's bloodstream clearly is not an option, as it will lead to cardiac arrest.