The Unfamiliar Road

Travel gently in the darkness and never lose yourself.Most people say that life rewards those who work hard for it. That dreams will manifest if you believe and through consistent work or perseverance. But if you are someone who suffered with infertility for a decade, no amount of determination and hard work can take you to the finish line. That's one of the hardest lessons that Chatty Rasul discovered in her journey.The Unfamiliar Road is about the author's journey to self-discovery, self-acceptance, and finding faith while navigating through the dark road of infertility and infidelity. This is another story of overcoming obstaclesaEUR"how to perceive things in a different light and turning one's brokenness into blessings. What looks like a double dose of misery is actually a double dose of blessings. When you are walking the path of unfamiliar crossroad and sufferings, you thought it's the end of your world. You thought you will never make it. You thought you are all alone in your suffering. You lose your joy and hope. And you lose yourself in the process. No matter how great and deep the hurt is, with God's grace, healing is possible. You will learn that God has designed this world of challenges or adversaries for one's ultimate purpose.

The freedom to go anywhere and become anyone has profoundly shaped our national psyche. Transforming our sense of place and identity--whether in terms of social and economic status, or race and ethnicity, or gender and sexuality—American mobility is perhaps nowhere more vividly captured than in the image of the open road. From pioneer trails to the latest car commercial, the road looms large as a form of expansiveness and opportunity. Too often it is the celebratory idea of the road as a free-floating zone moving the traveler beyond the typical concerns of space and time that dominates the discussion. Rather than thinking of mobility as an escape from cultural tensions, however, Ann Brigham proposes that we understand mobility as a mode of engagement with them. She explores the genre of road narratives to show how mobility both thrives on and attempts to manage shifting conflicts about space and society in the United States. From the earliest transcontinental automobile narratives from the 1910s, through classics like Jack Kerouac's On the Road and the film Thelma & Louise, up to post-9/11 narratives, Brigham traces the ways in which mobility has been imagined, created, and interrogated over the past century and shows how mobility promises, and threatens, to incorporate the outsider and to blur boundaries. Bringing together textual and cultural analysis, theories of spatiality, and sociohistorical frameworks, this book offers an invigoratingly different view of mobility and a new understanding of the road narrative’s importance in American culture. Choice Outstanding Academic Title from American Library Association

A wrong turn could lead to Mr. Right. Sam Cooper is the definition of an introvert: shy, bookish, and the sort to think a wild Friday night involves ordering takeout. He enjoys his quiet life, but after a bad breakup, he's been yearning for a change of scenery. Luckily, his best friend and former college roommate has the solution. Wesley Reed-a jokester and expert Sam-handler-proposes an epic road trip to a wedding across the country. They're both between jobs and boyfriends. Why not hit the open road and make some memories? Stuck in close quarters for the first time since their dorm days, they're both surprised at the heat that springs up between them. As best friends, they've shared so much over the years, so why does sharing a hotel room-and occasionally a bed-make them want more? Chemistry this smoldering is hard to ignore, but there are road blocks to their romance. Wesley's keeping a secret, and Sam can't rely on Wesley to drag him out of his comfort zone forever. If they're not careful, their relationship may take the ultimate wrong turn.

The story of ‘The Mountains Within’ is prototypical of the people who grew into first-ever consciousness of their own identities from the obscurity of innumerable socio-cultural microcosms that had existed at the subterranean level for centuries and millennia over the length and breadth of India before the Independence. The story moves from present to past to future with the main protagonist’s grand-daughter setting out to reconstruct the life story of her grand-father she admires. The story is contemporary and relevant to a whole lot of Indians who finished their journeys of existence at the beginning of the new millennium. As they sit back, vacuous and dazed after the ‘retirement’, they cannot help ruminating over the past vis-à-vis their own lives. No matter how objective their self-appraisal, they cannot escape being dubbed a generation of ineffectual crusaders who fell from grace by succumbing to hypocrisies both personal and collective. They cannot exonerate themselves from the stigma of making a mess of a newly liberated country through moral turpitude and lack of individual will. They cannot face up to the younger generation of today and convince them they had no role to play in the fabrication of myths such ‘Mera Bharat Mahaan’. There are no Nuremberg Trials for the crimes we commit within our minds and souls. However, if history is continuity between the past and the present, then ‘The Mountains Within’ does leave some doors open for Nuremberg Trials of the mind and the souls for these Indians.

Seyvchelles Bradt

The increasing power of computer technologies, the evolution of software en- neering and the advent of the intelligent transport systems has prompted traf c simulation to become one of the most used approaches for traf c analysis in s- port of the design and evaluation of traf c systems. The ability of traf c simulation to emulate the time variability of traf c phenomena makes it a unique tool for capturing the complexity of traf c systems. In recent years, traf c simulation – and namely microscopic traf c simulation – has moved from the academic to the professional world. A wide variety of traf- c simulation software is currently available on the market and it is utilized by thousands of users, consultants, researchers and public agencies. Microscopic traf c simulation based on the emulation of traf c ows from the dynamics of individual vehicles is becoming one the most attractive approaches. However, traf c simulation still lacks a uni ed treatment. Dozens of papers on theory and applications are published in scienti c journals every year. A search of simulation-related papers and workshops through the proceedings of the last annual TRB meetings would support this assertion, as would a review of the minutes from speci cally dedicated meetings such as the International Symposiums on Traf c Simulation (Yokohama, 2002; Lausanne, 2006; Brisbane, 2008) or the International Workshops on Traf c Modeling and Simulation (Tucson, 2001; Barcelona, 2003; Sedona, 2005; Graz 2008). Yet, the only comprehensive treatment of the subject to be found so far is in the user’s manuals of various software products.