Santiago Montalvo, a man who built his political career on a façade of virtue and righteousness, while hiding behind that mask a deep well of manipulation, deceit and betrayal. From his childhood, Santiago learns that the truth is just another tool to manipulate those around him. Throughout these pages, we will see him rise, becoming a powerful and charismatic figure, always controlling his environment, always one step ahead of those who, unknowingly, are pieces in his game.Through...

The Journey to the Port and Supernatural EncountersThe tale begins with Alejandra, a determined woman navigating a foggy, stormy Mediterranean town preparing for winter. She is accompanied by a merchant named Askari and a group of men transporting carts with mysterious contents. As they traverse ancient wooden paths and docks, they encounter eerie phenomena including chanting men, spectral figures, and a looming supernatural presence known as “Jessenia.” This section highlights them...

"The Gravity of Being: The Weight of Expectation" is an emotional journey that explores how social and personal expectations impact our lives from an early age. The book invites readers to reflect on how freeing oneself from the weight of external expectations can lead to a more authentic and emotionally liberating life.

Are you facing the transition from adolescence to adulthood with fear? Don't worry, many are in the same situation as you. This book offers a comprehensive list of practical tips to guide you through this crucial process. From financial skills to mental health care, you'll find everything you need to face this transition with confidence.

A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the YearA moving portrait of a grim period in American immigration history, when approximately one million ethnic Mexicans—mostly women and children who were US citizens—were forced to relocate across the southern border.From 1921 to 1944, approximately one million ethnic Mexicans living in the United States were removed across the border to Mexico. What officials called “repatriation” was i...

Like Professor Carey Roberts, many feared the world would end in 2012. It was instead the beginning of a new cycle in the Mayan calendar. Life continues to evolve.Two years later, believing there is more to be learned from the Mayans, Roberts returns to the Yucatán, only to have his research interrupted when he is caught up in a local tragedy while in the company of Tyler West, a popular American journalist. Recuperating in Kaan, a place whose name is Mayan for Heaven, Roberts con...

A key challenge in science and engineering is to provide a quantitative description of the systems under investigation, leveraging the noisy data collected. Such a description may be a complete mathematical model or a mechanism to return controllers corresponding to new, unseen inputs. Recent advances in the theories are described in detail, along with their applications in engineering. The book aims to develop model-free system analysis and control strategies, i.e., data-driven control fr...

With contributions from a range of expert voices within the field, this book explores the use of art therapy as a response to traumatic events. Offering rare insight into ways in which art therapists have responded to recent crises, this is a unique resource for art therapists looking to coordinate interventions for large-scale disaster and resulting trauma.Chapters address a range of environmental and manmade disasters around the world, including hurricanes, typhoons, wildfires, m...

Metaheuristic optimization has become a prime alternative for solving complex optimization problems in several areas. Hence, practitioners and researchers have been paying extensive attention to those metaheuristic algorithms that are mainly based on natural phenomena. However, when those algorithms are implemented, there are not enough books that deal with theoretical and experimental problems in a friendly manner so this book presents a novel structure that includes a complete descriptio...

This volume details techniques, methods, and information relevant to the conservation of plant germplasm. Chapters guide researchers through conservation protocols, in vitro conservation, cryopreservation, seed conservation, and plant genetic resources. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible labo...

Inthis innovative and exhaustive study, Steven A. Ramirez posits that thesubprime mortgage crisis, as well as the global macroeconomic catastrophe itspawned, is traceable to a gross failure of law.Therule of law must appropriately channel and constrain the exercise of economicand political power. Used effectively, it ensures that economic opportunityisn’t limited to a small group of elites that enjoy growth at the expense ofmany, par...

According to the conventional wisdom, we live in a post-industrial information age. This book, however, paints a different picture: We live in the age of oil. Petroleum fuels and feedstocks are responsible for much of what we take for granted in modern society, from chemical products such as fertilizer and plastics, to the energy that moves people and goods in a global economy. Oil is a nearly perfect fuel: Energy dense, safe to store, easy to transport, and mostly environmentally benign. ...