Asher Machnik is a teenage boy cursed with a beautiful androgynous face. Guys punch him, girls slag him and by high school he's developed an intense fear of being touched. Art remains his only escape from an otherwise emotionally empty life. Eulalie Mason is the lonely, tough-talking dyke from school who befriends Ash. The only one to see and accept all of his sides as a loner, a fellow artist and a best friend, she's starting to wonder if ash is ever going to see all of her.... a + e 4EVER is a graphic novel set in that ambiguous crossroads where love and friendship, boy and girl, straight and gay meet. It goes where few books have ventured, into genderqueer life, where affections aren't black and white. A Stonewall Youth Book Award Honoree for its frank portrayal of queer, contemporary youth.

It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to the inaugural World Congress on Engineering Asset Management (WCEAM) being held at the Conrad Jupiters Hotel on the Gold Coast from July 11 to 14, 2006. More than 170 authors from 28 countries have contributed over 160 papers to be presented over the first three days of the conference. Day four will be host to a series of workshops devoted to the practice of various aspects of Engineering Asset Management. WCEAM is a new annual global forum on the various multidisciplinary aspects of Engineering Asset Management. It deals with the presentation and publication of outputs of research and development activities as well as the application of knowledge in the practical aspects of: strategic asset management risk management in asset management design and life-cycle integrity of physical assets asset performance and level of service models financial analysis methods for physical assets reliability modelling and prognostics information systems and knowledge management asset data management, warehousing and mining condition monitoring and intelligent maintenance intelligent sensors and devices regulations and standards in asset management human dimensions in integrated asset management education and training in asset management and performance management in asset management. We have attracted academics, practitioners and scientists from around the world to share their knowledge in this important emerging transdiscipline that impacts on almost every aspect of daily life.

Includes separately published extra and called sessions.

A "massive work of dizzying originality" (Boston Globe), XX is an inventive and boldly designed science-fiction epic by acclaimed graphic designer Rian Hughes—now in paperback The battle for your mind has already begun. At Jodrell Bank Observatory in England, a radio telescope has detected a mysterious signal of extraterrestrial origin—a message that may be the first communication from an interstellar civilization. Has Humanity made first contact? Is the signal itself a form of alien life? Could it be a threat? If so, how will the people of Earth respond? Jack Fenwick, artificial intelligence expert, believes that he and his associates at tech start-up Intelligencia can interpret the message and find a way to step into the realm the signal encodes. What they find is a complex alien network beyond anything mankind has imagined. Drawing on Dada, punk, and the modernist movements of the 20th century, XX is assembled from redacted NASA reports, artwork, magazine articles, secret transcripts, and a novel within a novel. Deconstructing layout and language in order to explore how ideas propagate, acclaimed designer and artist Rian Hughes's debut novel presents a compelling vision of humanity's unique place in the universe, and a realistic depiction of what might happen in the wake of the biggest scientific discovery in human history. Propulsive and boldly designed, XX is a gripping, wildly imaginative, utterly original work.

An introduction to one of the most powerful tools in modern economics Game Theory for Applied Economists introduces one of the most powerful tools of modern economics to a wide audience: those who will later construct or consume game-theoretic models. Robert Gibbons addresses scholars in applied fields within economics who want a serious and thorough discussion of game theory but who may have found other works too abstract. Gibbons emphasizes the economic applications of the theory at least as much as the pure theory itself; formal arguments about abstract games play a minor role. The applications illustrate the process of model building—of translating an informal description of a multi-person decision situation into a formal game-theoretic problem to be analyzed. Also, the variety of applications shows that similar issues arise in different areas of economics, and that the same game-theoretic tools can be applied in each setting. In order to emphasize the broad potential scope of the theory, conventional applications from industrial organization have been largely replaced by applications from labor, macro, and other applied fields in economics. The book covers four classes of games, and four corresponding notions of equilibrium: static games of complete information and Nash equilibrium, dynamic games of complete information and subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium, static games of incomplete information and Bayesian Nash equilibrium, and dynamic games of incomplete information and perfect Bayesian equilibrium.