This book constitutes the proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Relational and Algebraic Methods in Computer Science, RAMiCS 2017, held in Lyon, France, in May 2017.The 17 revised full papers and 2 invited papers presented together with 1 invited abstract were carefully selected from 28 submissions. Topics covered range from mathematical foundations to applications as conceptual and methodological tools in computer science and beyond.

At the end, when the last star dies and the cold begins to seep in, what will be the totality of our accomplishments? What will have been the point? And will anyone notice that we're gone? If the true terror at the center of cosmic horror is the vast indifference the universe has for us, does that mean the closest thing we have to any sort of compassionate connection is . . . our cats? Ah, we may be doomed.But, in the interim, perhaps there may still be some spark that can illumina...

We arrive yet again at the end of it all: the dreaded holiday season, where everything is too bright, nothing is where it should be, and you will be constantly hounded by the persistent dread of having forgotten something very important. And traffic will be totally and utterly f*cked all the way to the mall. We are doomed.But there may still be some spark in these fading minutes before the heat death of the universe, before the last tear is shed, and before the last present is unwr...

For many centuries, the history of the crusades, as written by Western historians, was based solidly on Western sources. Evidence from the Islamic societies that the crusaders attacked was used only sparingly – in part because it was hard for most westerners to read, and in part because much of it was inaccessible even for historians who did speak Arabic.Carole Hillenbrand set out to re-evaluate the sources for the crusading period, not only looking with fresh eyes at known account...

In 1941, as World War Two raged, scores of men stepped forward to answer Winston Churchill's call for volunteers for Special Service, a high-risk opportunity to undertake the most hazardous, top-secret duties of war. Comprised of some of the finest fighting units in the entire British Army, these warriors longed to leave behind their mind-numbing garrison duties for battle. A rightfully proud regiment with an unrivaled esprit de corps, they were disavowed as unruly by top brass, unyielding...

Perhaps no work of history written in the 20th century has done more to undermine an existing consensus and cause its readers to re-evaluate their own preconceptions than has Jonathan Riley-Smith's revisionist account of the motives of the first crusaders.Riley-Smith's thesis – based on extensive original research and firmly rooted in his refusal to uncritically accept the evidence or reasoning of earlier historians – is that the majority of the men who travelled to the east on cru...

Riley-Smith’s 1986 book gives convincing case for a ‘revisionist’ view of the crusades, challenging the common belief that the crusades were motivated by fanaticism and were designed to plunder the Holy Lands. After studying handwritten documents held in churches across Western Europe in which crusaders explained their personal reasons for heading out on the “holy war,” he pioneered the use of computer spreadsheets to cross-reference data on individual crusaders and their families allowing...

July 1943: The largest invasion fleet ever assembled sailed for fortress Europe, aiming to bulldoze its way onto Nazi shores. At its vanguard went a few hundred elite forces soldiers. The Royal Navy warship carrying them—a former passenger ferry transformed for battle—bore the iconic winged dagger emblem carved on its prow, plus the motto 'Who Dares Wins,' painstakingly fashioned with the most rudimentary tools by Sergeant William 'Bill' Deakins, the foremost explosives expert on board and...

This program is read by the author.A ground-breaking account of the first 24 hours of the D-Day invasion told by a symphony of incredible accounts of unknown and unheralded members of the Allied – and Axis – forces.Seventy-five years have passed since D-Day, the greatest seaborne invasion in history. The outcome of the Second World War hung in the balance on that chill June morning. If Allied forces succeeded in gaining a foothold in northe...

SOMETIMES THE BIGGEST HORRORS COME IN THE SMALLEST PACKAGES…There's nothing better than a short, sharp slice of flash fiction to get the mind working. 99 Tiny Terrors is an anthology that the reader can dip into for something deliciously dangerous in a short amount of time, or spend an afternoon trolling through blood-soaked stories from all over the world, including Canada, England, Germany, Greece, Ireland, India, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the United Sta...

"Once we were all just people. Our culture was only an element of our complex being. Now, we are reduced to our origins." -- Amelia Fisher, "The Children of Echidna"No one understands being an outsider like the people who have experienced it. Mad Scientist Journal has brought together twenty-six tales of people who have lived in a world that doesn't accept them. Some face their situation with humor, others less so. Vampires, werewolves, and changelings share space in these pages wi...

Despite the West's growing involvement in Muslim societies, conflicts, and cultures, its inability to understand or analyze the Islamic world threatens any prospect for East–West rapprochement. Impelled by one thousand years of anti-Muslim ideas and images, the West has failed to engage in any meaningful or productive way with the world of Islam. Formulated in the medieval halls of the Roman Curia and courts of the European Crusaders and perfected in the newsrooms of Fox News and CNN, this...