What follows is my personal perspective on early events that played a signi?cant role in the formation of the ?eld now known as Smart Structures. It is by no means meant to be all inclusive or de?nitive in any way, but merely an account of personal experiences that ultimately lead to the development of the material contained and presented herein. On March 23, 1983 then President Ronald Reagan announced his intentions to develop a new system to reduce the threat of nuclear attack and end th...

Modern Flexible Multi-Body Dynamics Modeling Methodology for Flapping Wing Vehicles presents research on the implementation of a flexible multi-body dynamic representation of a flapping wing ornithopter that considers aero-elasticity. This effort brings advances in the understanding of flapping wing flight physics and dynamics that ultimately leads to an improvement in the performance of such flight vehicles, thus reaching their high performance potential. In using this model, it is necess...

Unmanned air vehicles are becoming increasingly popular alternatives for private applications which include, but are not limited to, fire fighting, search and rescue, atmospheric data collection, and crop surveys, to name a few. Among these vehicles are avian-inspired, flapping-wing designs, which are safe to operate near humans and are required to carry payloads while achieving manoeuverability and agility in low speed flight. Conventional methods and tools fall short of achieving the des...

This book develops and details a rigorous, canonical modeling approach for analyzing spatio-temporal brain wave dynamics. The nonlinear, nonstationary behavior of brain wave measures and general uncertainty associated with the brain makes it difficult to apply modern system identification techniques to such systems. While there is a substantial amount of literature on the use of stationary analyses for brain waves, relatively less work has considered real-time estimation and imaging of bra...

There's nothing more mysterious than a locked box. Whether it's a literal strongbox, an empty coffin, the inner workings of a scientist's mind, or an underground prison cell, there are those who will use any means necessary to unlock the secrets of The Mystery Box.With this anthology, bestselling author Brad Meltzer introduces twenty-one original stories from today's most prominent mystery writers. In Laura Lippman's "Waco 1982," a young reporter stuck with a seemingly mun...

This carefully curated anthology brings together a broad selection of timeless works in one digital edition. Readers can discover essential voices, memorable stories and enduring ideas across a rich variety of literary styles. Prepared for comfortable continuous reading, this collection is ideal for exploring classic literature or returning to lasting favorites.

40 Civil War Memoirs of Confederate Soldiers assembles a capacious and often contentious archive of memory, combining battlefield narrative, campaign recollection, naval experience, cavalry adventure, command perspective, and postwar reflection. Its varied prose ranges from formal military testimony to vivid anecdote and elegiac reminiscence, revealing how Confederate participants fashioned accounts of defeat, loyalty, courage, and loss. Read critically, the volume also exposes the omissio...

The Rebel Yell gathers forty Civil War soldier memoirs into a capacious, often contradictory record of Confederate military experience. Ranging from formal recollection and campaign narrative to cavalry adventure, naval testimony, prison memory, and reflections on defeat, the volume illuminates both battlefield immediacy and the retrospective shaping of war. Accounts of major operations, irregular warfare, command, endurance, and home-front loyalties reveal the variety of literary register...

A Rebels' War assembles forty-seven personal accounts of the Confederacy, placing battlefield recollection beside diary, memoir, political testimony, naval narrative, and reflections on civilian life. Its varied prose ranges from formal military reportage to intimate domestic observation, revealing how war was experienced, remembered, and subsequently narrated by Confederate participants. Campaign accounts, prison and espionage episodes, and striking records of the home front together illu...

God Save the South: 40+ Memoirs of Defiance gathers a capacious, contentious body of Confederate-era recollection: military narratives, political testimony, diaries, domestic observations, and retrospective defenses of secession. Its varied styles range from battlefield chronicle and naval report to intimate journal writing and polemical memoir. Accounts of campaigns, imprisonment, supply, civilian hardship, and the collapsing home front make the volume valuable not as a unified history, b...

Dr. Hubbard becomes your digital medical assistant in this interactive guide to what to do when you're burned and there's no doctor to be found.When you get a bad burn, the usual advice is to call 911. But what if there is no 911? What if you're in the wilderness, in a terrorist attack, or dealing with the aftermath of a tornado, with blocked roads and demolished phone lines? With the right knowledge, you and your family can survive—even with the most basic makeshift supplies....

Dr. Hubbard becomes your digital medical assistant in this interactive guide to what to do when you're wounded and there's no doctor to be found.When you get a bad injury, the usual advice is to call 911. But what if there is no 911? What if you're in another Hurricane Katrina, a terrorist attack or the aftermath of a tornado? The phone lines are down; the roads are blocked. You are the only help available.Most people wouldn't survive a bad wound without expert help. But wi...