Books on the topic 'Constantes effectives'

Directory of businesses economist contains answers to basic questions that are constantly faced economists in their practice enterprises and firms. The book includes information on how to organize enterprise management, establish business processes, business planning, to determine the strategic objectives and set targets, take educated management decisions and to ensure their effective implementation. The book focuses on practical economists, financiers, accountants - beginners to experts and highly qualified professionals - everyone will find here a lot of new, useful and relevant information for the effective and high-quality execution of their professional duties.

This work addresses torture with the ambition to strengthen a properly sociological approach to it by bringing to the fore the social history of the tortured, also through the fundamental contribution of the political economy. This category is not utilised in an abstract way, it is brought into the picture through the social history of the bodies of those tortured. These bodies are not considered mere biological bodies subjugated by ‘power’, but rather bodies with a voice, bodies capable of revealing their social standing. Placing the bodies’ class at the centre of the analysis allows us to fully grasp the sociological substance of torture, to understand the underlying reasons for its historical persistence and constant diffusion. The book explores torture in a threefold way: firstly by analysing the image of torture as an effective hermeneutic tool of late modernity; secondly by adopting a historical perspective to identify structural elements and metamorphoses; thirdly by examining the concrete practices of torture to enable the establishment of a mutual relationship between history and biography.

The effects of genetic drift usually assume an idealized population of constant size. This chapter shows how the population size for such an idealized population can be replaced with an effective population size for populations with age structure, unequal sex ratios, a history of expansion or contraction, inbreeding, and population subdivision. These demographic features impact the entire genome more or less equally. A relatively recent understanding is that selection at a site can dramatically reduce the local effective population size experienced by nearby linked sites (the Hill-Robertson effect). This can arise from background selection to remove deleterious new mutations or from selective sweeps wherein favorable new mutations are driven toward fixation. The Hill-Robertson effect is a general way to describe the fact that selection at a site makes selection are other linked sites less efficient, and, therefore, more neutral. This chapter discusses the implications of this finding for genome structure.

A number of suggestions are offered to make the post-operative care of patients with implanted systems more effective and safe. The choice of constant current versus constant voltage stimulation and the consequences and implications of that choice are reviewed. For example, with constant voltage stimulation, the programmer should wait at least two weeks after lead implantation before programming the IPG. Starting DBS too soon after implantation can cause marked adverse effects because of changes in tissue impedance is high immediately after implantation. The use of a monopolar survery at the initiation of DBS is advocated as are clarification of patient responses, impedance checks, assureing that the range of electrode configurations and stimulation parameters that patients and caregivers can implement are within safety margins, systematic clear and adaquete documentation, resetting counters and indicators, and encouraging the patient keeps the patient controller available at all times. Topics of troubleshooting are reviewed.

This chapter examines the law on State responsibility for corruption. It argues that the application of the international law on responsibility to transnational corruption issues in investment arbitration should involve bringing States to account for the fulfilment of their national and international anti-corruption obligations, before the issue is allowed to be used for mostly exculpatory reasons. Transnational corruption cannot be combated effectively by focusing and punishing only the foreign investor, which is only one side of the equation. Corruption-plagued states are doomed to repeat the failures of governance that have persisted in their public spheres so long as they are not asked to do more.

Focuses on the role of the native regimes in Serbia - the so-called Council of Commissars and its successor Government of National Salvation – in the context of German rule. To restore communication lines and transport, to reactivate industries, and to collect food supplies, the office of the Military Commander-in-Serbia (MBS) had to to rely on controllable native institutions, which mediated the relationship between the occupiers and the occupied. However, all German offices constantly intervened into the functioning of the collaborationist administration, effectively blunting its potential.

With the fields of public administration and public management suffering a crisis of relevance, this book offers a provocative assessment of their shortfalls. The two fields, it finds, no longer address urgent questions of governance in a turbulent and dangerous world. The book offers a new path forward for research, teaching, and practice. Leaders of states are constantly reinventing strategies for governing. Experts in public administration must give advice on the design as well as execution of strategies that is effective, robust, and principled. The book challenges us to reinvigorate public administration and public management, preparing the fields for the challenges of the twenty-first century.

Paediatric pain management has made great strides in the past few decades in the understanding of developmental neurobiology, developmental pharmacology, the use of analgesics in children, the use of regional techniques in children, and of the psychological needs of children in pain. The consequences of a painful experience on the young nervous system are so significant that long-term effects can occur, resulting in behavioural changes and a lowered pain threshold for months after a painful event. Accurate assessment of pain in different age groups and the effective treatment of postoperative pain are constantly being refined, with newer drugs being used alone and in combination with other drugs, and continue to be explored. Systemic opioids, paracetamol, non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, and regional anaesthesia alone or combined with additives are currently used to provide effective postoperative analgesia. These modalities are often best utilized when combined as a multimodal approach to treat acute pain in the perioperative setting. The safe and effective management of pain in children includes the prevention, recognition, and assessment of pain; early and individualized treatment; and evaluation of the efficacy of treatment. This chapter discusses selected topics in paediatric acute pain management, with more specific emphasis placed on pharmacology and regional anaesthesia in the treatment of acute postoperative pain management.

Levodopa is the most efficacious medication to reduce motor impairment in Parkinson disease (PD). The effect of levodopa can wear off after time, which is treated by increasing the dose or shortening the inter-dose interval. Dyskinesias can be treated by a change in levodopa dosing or route of administration, such as by constant administration of levodopa as a gel through a jejunostomy tube or a change to dopamine agonists or amantadine. Non-motor signs including depression can be treated with several antidepressants. Surgical treatments including pallidotomy, thalamotomy, and deep brain stimulation (DBS) have emerged as effective therapies in selected patients with PD refractory to drug treatment.

Given the constant and often increasing risks for violence against mental health professionals, the effective evaluation, management, and treatment of patients with psychotic agitation is of critical importance to ensuring safety. This chapter builds upon several articles of the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry’s Project BETA, which proposes guidelines and best practices for the treatment of agitation. We suggest that clinicians use a tiered, progressive approach to treating agitation in which they attempt less-invasive methods such as verbal de-escalation before drug intervention, when medically appropriate. It is argued that treatment should be proportionate to the severity of agitation, and pharmacological intervention should be used as a last resort.

Outreach is particularly needed for patients with limited insight into their need for treatment. This chapter examines the concept of insight and the practices used to support it and to ensure treatment despite its limitations. Balancing individual liberty and recovery against the need for effective treatment is a constant challenge for outreach workers. Internationally, levels of compulsion are increasing. Compulsion has expanded beyond the hospital into the community despite the absence of evidence that such community treatment orders (CTOs) have any significant benefits for patients. Different forms of informal coercion, including leverage, are described along with practices to protect the therapeutic relationship when compulsion has to be used. The power imbalance in the therapeutic relationship is explored and the risks for unwitting abuse noted.

The Earth's climate is constantly changing. Some of the changes are progressive, while others fluctuate at various time scales. The El Niño-la Niña cycle is one such fluctuation that recurs every few years and has far-reaching impacts. It generally appears at least once per decade, but this may vary with our changing climate. The exact frequency, sequence, duration and intensity of El Niño's manifestations, as well as its effects and geographic distributions, are highly variable. The El Niño-la Niña cycle is particularly challenging to study due to its many interlinked phenomena that occur in various locations around the globe. These worldwide teleconnections are precisely what makes studying El Niño-la Niña so important. Cynthia Rosenzweig and Daniel Hillel describe the current efforts to develop and apply a global-to-regional approach to climate-risk management. They explain how atmospheric and social scientists are cooperating with agricultural practitioners in various regions around the world to determine how farmers may benefit most from new climate predictions. Specifically, the emerging ability to predict the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle offers the potential to transform agricultural planning worldwide. Biophysical scientists are only now beginning to recognize the large-scale, globally distributed impacts of ENSO on the probabilities of seasonal precipitation and temperature regimes. Meanwhile, social scientists have been researching how to disseminate forecasts more effectively within rural communities. Consequently, as the quality of climatic predictions have improved, the dissemination and presentation of forecasts have become more effective as well. This book explores the growing understanding of the interconnectedness of climate predictions and productive agriculture for sustainable development, as well as methods and models used to study this relationship.

Trauma can leave a lasting impact on survivors. Some survivors are haunted by intrusive memories; avoid people, places, and situations related to the trauma; and feel constantly on edge due to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related posttrauma reactions. Effective treatment can help survivors suffering with PTSD to process the trauma and no longer feel haunted by traumatic experiences from their past. Prolonged exposure (PE) therapy is a highly effective, flexible, individualized psychotherapy that reduces the symptoms of PTSD. PE is the most widely studied treatment for PTSD, with more than 100 studies showing its efficacy and effectiveness in PTSD and comorbid patient populations affected by single-incident and multiple-incident traumas of all types (e.g., combat, sexual assault, etc.). This manual presents a PE protocol for use in residential and massed programs to provide an innovative new model of care that provides excellent retention and transformational symptom outcomes. Providers are presented with the elements of the PE protocol along with all the logistics for how to provide PE in an intensive outpatient program. Variations and considerations for implementation are presented to allow providers designing programs to consider what best fits their patient population and setting. Patient and provider forms are included for use.

This book is designed for faculty and graduate assistants working with undergraduate music majors as well as non-majors in colleges and universities in the United States. It includes suggestions for designing and organizing music courses (applied music as well as academic classes) and strategies for meeting the developmental needs of the undergraduate student. It addresses concerns about undergraduate curricula that meet National Association of School of Music requirements as well as teacher education requirements for music education majors in most states. A common theme throughout the book is a focus on learner-centered pedagogy or trying to meet students where they are and base instruction on their individual needs. The text also maintains a constant focus on the relationship between teaching and learning and encourages innovative ways for instructors to assess student learning in music courses. Teaching is connected throughout the book to student learning and the lecture model of teaching as transmission is discouraged. Activities throughout the book ask instructors to focus on what it means to be an effective teacher for music courses. As there is limited research on teaching music in higher education, the book relies on comprehensive texts from the general education field to help provide the research base for our definition of effective teaching.

The immune system serves as an integral checkpoint to developing malignancies. However, when cancer ultimately becomes detectable, this implicates an inherent failure of effective immune control. One constant theme in cancer biology has been the ability of these “diseases,” in particular, ovarian cancer, to compromise immune-mediated mechanisms of neoplastic control. These empirical observations have subsequently laid the scientific foundation to investigate ways in which the immune system can be reengaged as a powerful therapeutic weapon, singly or in combination with other modalities. This field has been coined “cancer immunotherapy” and, importantly, strong progress has been made to date to justify its feasibility and potential merit. This chapter focuses on the fundamental immunologic principles that have guided the development of the cancer immunotherapy concept, as well as details both the successes and the limitations of cancer immunotherapy in patients with metastatic ovarian cancer.

In this chapter, the British traditions of positivism and realism, which have been important for different strands of qualitative research, are discussed. Positivism is often misunderstood by qualitative researchers and presented as a form of realism, but it is actually an anti-realism that reduces knowledge claims to what we may positively verify in experience. Causality consequently becomes constant conjunction in experience. In contrast to this, realist positions argue that science should go beyond immediate experience to study working mechanisms that generate the phenomena that we in fact experience. Philosophers today disagree about the existence of such mechanisms when it comes to human psychological and social life. Some constructionists argue that there are no causally effective mechanisms in our social life, whereas others, especially critical realists, argue that social science should be all about identifying such mechanisms.

Metastatic renal cancer is resistant to standard chemotherapy. Although some patients with indolent disease can be initially managed with observation, the majority of patients will require aggressive treatment soon after diagnosis. Options include cytoreductive nephrectomy, resection of a solitary metastasis in highly selected cases, or systemic therapy options. The TKIs sunitinib and pazopanib are currently the first-line treatments of choice. Whilst axitinib and cabozantinib have important roles in the second line the PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor, nivolumab, is now established as standard second line therapy. Inhibitors of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway, everolimus and temsirolimus, interleukin-2 as well as the anti-angiogenic antibody bevacizumab have also been shown to be effective. The treatment paradigm of metastatic renal cancer is constantly changing as evidence from clinical trials continues to emerge. With the development of agents addressing novel targets such as T-cell regulation, the future certainly looks brighter for patients diagnosed with this disease.

Throughout the US-Vietnam conflict (1965–1973), American forces labored to comply with the Geneva Conventions and customary laws of war, though US war crimes largely overshadowed those efforts. This chapter relates the training US forces received on the law of war and describes how military lawyers practiced law “in country.” US combatants were constantly directed to report war crimes, known or suspected. Too often those directives were not obeyed. My Lai is fully examined, including its badly failed military prosecutions. Disturbing post-trial clemency by civilian authorities, in many cases, is also detailed. On the whole, however, the sentences of US personnel convicted by courts-martial of war crimes were sincere efforts to appropriately punish battlefield criminality. This chapter argues that, under difficult conditions, US military efforts in Vietnam to comply with the Geneva Conventions, and to punish known US war crimes, were more genuine and effective than have been generally recognized.

In this learn-by-doing chapter, some widely available classes are introduced and employed to solve problems in the physical sciences. By using linear algebra classes from the Eigen package, collection classes from the C++ standard library, and function classes from the authors’ own Qat libraries, readers become familiar some classes that can be effectively applied in physics computation and which are illustrative of good class design. Practice obtained in using these classes is intended to be helpful in understanding the more formal treatment of C++ concepts in subsequent chapters. Physics applications include familiar problems such as coupled oscillations and quantum mechanical scattering in one dimension from piecewise-constant potentials, for which computational methods are necessary in all but the simplest cases. Visualization of functions with the Qt-based Qat library is also introduced.

Chapter 2 tracks the background, inception, and development stages of Dibao. Dibao has undergone significant expansions and has impacted the lives of millions of low-income families. The chapter shows that, throughout its development, Dibao has been shaped by economic and political forces and has remained true to its dual functions of serving as a safety net to the poor and maintaining social control and political stability. A constant struggle in Dibao has been addressing the fundamental questions of how to conduct means testing, and how to determine benefits eligibility most effectively and achieve the program’s intended goal of serving as a safety net for the truly poor. Such challenges are embedded in Dibao’s dilemma between central regulation and local implementation and will continue in its future development.

The Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) pathway strategy explicitly begins and ends with the community, and this ethos lies at the heart of the pathway approach to management. This chapter therefore focuses on the question of how best to deploy limited resources to greatest effect when facing the challenge of high levels of morbidity and offending, a large geographical area, and a changing staff group. Having reviewed the rather sparse literature on relevant and effective community treatment interventions, the authors consider the relative benefits of stand-alone treatment approaches, partnership working, and indirect support, before describing the mixed model chosen by the London Pathways Partnership. The chapter concludes with a reflection on progress and challenges four years on; unbalanced by politically driven changes midway, the service nevertheless has flourished, although partnership working requires constant attention if staff are to be supported to make a real difference.

This introductory chapter outlines the development of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, an international treaty that defines a framework for diplomatic relations between sovereign States. It elaborates three key details why the Convention serves as an important legal framework that regulates international relations. First, the Convention guarantees the efficacy and security of the machinery through which States conduct diplomacy, and without this machinery States cannot construct law, whether by custom or by agreement on matters of substance. The Convention constitutes the procedural framework for the construction of international law and international relations. Secondly, reciprocity forms a constant and effective sanction for the observance of nearly all the rules of the Convention, such as the treatment of representatives or diplomats abroad. Thirdly, the Convention never loses sight of the need to find solutions which would be acceptable to governments and to national Parliaments as a whole.

Dense fluids and liquids molecules are in constant interaction; hence, they do not fit into the Boltzmann’s picture of a clearcut separation between free-streaming and collisional interactions. Since the interactions are soft and do not involve large scattering angles, an effective way of describing dense fluids is to formulate stochastic models of particle motion, as pioneered by Einstein’s theory of Brownian motion and later extended by Paul Langevin. Besides its practical value for the study of the kinetic theory of dense fluids, Brownian motion bears a central place in the historical development of kinetic theory. Among others, it provided conclusive evidence in favor of the atomistic theory of matter. This chapter introduces the basic notions of stochastic dynamics and its connection with other important kinetic equations, primarily the Fokker–Planck equation, which bear a complementary role to the Boltzmann equation in the kinetic theory of dense fluids.

Organizations are currently facing demands associated with remaining competitive in a constantly evolving market. Promoting creativity is a commonly implemented approach to address this challenge. One possible solution to enhancing organizational creativity is the implementation of training programs that encourage the generation of novel, creative ideas within the context of teams. This chapter aims to synthesize the current literature on the science of training as it pertains to fostering creativity within teams. We begin by providing definitions for the constructs associated with this research and a brief overview of team training and team creativity. We then review instructional strategies currently used to train creativity. Next, we delineate best practices intended to guide the design, implementation, and evaluation of team training for creativity. We close by suggesting future directions for research that will uncover how team training can be implemented more effectively to enhance team creativity.

This fourth edition of Law of the European Convention on Human Rights builds on the great strengths of earlier editions. An up-to-date account of Strasbourg case law and its underlying principles, this title facilitates an understanding of this key area of law. It explores the extent of the Convention’s influence upon the legal development of the contracting states, and reveals exactly how such a considerable impact has been achieved and maintained. It sets out and critically analyses the Strasbourg jurisprudence on each Convention article that constitutes the substantive guarantee, and examines the system of supervision. The Convention has effectively become the constitutional bill of rights for Europe, providing common human rights standards for the whole continent. National parliaments and courts must constantly look to the Convention when legislating and deciding cases, or run the risk of adverse Strasbourg judgments with which they must then comply. For all states, the Convention has been made enforceable in their national courts.

John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) kicked off the slasher film wave with its disturbing depiction of Michael Myers’s killing spree in a small American town. This chapter argues that Halloween’s emotional and imaginative power has its wellspring in human nature. The film’s horror scenario—the threat of being killed by another human—reflects an evolutionarily ancient hazard, one that has left deep traces in our constitution. Conspecific predation has been a constant danger of social life for millions of years, and the film effectively evokes that danger in a contemporary setting. Halloween gets its power from depicting, and aligning audiences with, likeable and peaceful characters in quiet and safe suburbia, which is suddenly infested with a homicidal agent, Michael Myers, who is simultaneously subhuman and superhuman. Myers became a horror icon because he is a supercharged representation of an ancient danger, a hostile conspecific outside rational reach.

Since the popular emergence of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, nothing has been clearer about the digital environment than that it changes at a breakneck pace, making it a constant challenge of adaptation for content providers. Public historians who may have come of age in the context of writing either concise wall labels for the public or extended scholarly articles and conference papers for their fellow historians might find the pace and the level of flexibility and interactivity of the Web disconcerting, but in the end, the advantages for the practice of public history are extensive. Breaking the constraints of a physical site by effectively using the Web leaves public historians constrained only by their time, resources, and imagination. This chapter deals specifically with the various modes of communication that are available to public historians through the use of new media.

This chapter shows how the Newtonian law of motion of a particle subject to a gradient force derived from a ‘potential energy’ can always be obtained from an extremal principle, or ‘principle of least action’. According to Newton’s first law, the trajectory representing the motion of a free particle between two points p1 and p2 is a straight line. In other words, out of all the possible paths between p1 and p2, the trajectory effectively followed by a free particle is the one that minimizes the length. However, even though the use of the principle of extremal length of the paths between two points gives the straight line joining the points, this does not mean that the straight-line path is traced with constant velocity in an inertial frame. Moreover, the trajectory describing the motion of a particle subject to a force is not uniform and rectilinear.

Political jurisprudence is the branch of jurisprudence that treats law as an aspect of human experience called ‘the political’. This is an approach that many contemporary jurists, those whose work presupposes the autonomy of legal order, tend to suppress. In this book, Martin Loughlin assesses the contribution made by political jurists and explains its contemporary significance. Political jurists maintain that the essential characteristics of modern legal order can only be revealed by considering how political authority is constituted. The political is orientated to the fact that people are organized into territorially-bounded units within which authoritative governing arrangements have been established, but the authority of this way of viewing the world is strengthened only through institutional-building. Law may be an aspect of the political, but to perform its authority-generating functions effectively it must operate relatively autonomously. The political and the legal operate relationally, without one being reduced to the other. Loughlin introduces the rich literature of political jurisprudence through essays on innovative political jurists such as Hobbes, Burke, Constant, Romano, and Schmitt, and on such central themes as political right, institutionalism, constitutional legality, and reason of state. Building on his earlier books, The Idea of Public Law (OUP 2003) and Foundations of Public Law (OUP 2010), this collection extends his account of this influential strand of European legal thought.

Management of the post-cardiothoracic surgical patient follows general principles of intensive care, but incorporates certain unique considerations. In cardiac surgical patients peri-operative ischaemia, arrhythmias and ventricular dysfunction mandate specific monitoring requirements, and individual pharmacological and mechanical support. Suspicion of myocardial ischaemia should not only lead to pharmacological treatment, but also consideration of urgent angiography to exclude coronary graft occlusion. Ventricular dysfunction may be pre-existing or attributable to intra-operative myocardial ‘stunning’. Catecholamines and phosphodiesterase inhibitors are the mainstay of therapy. Rarely, intra-aortic balloon pumping or ventricular assist devices are required. Significant bleeding (with potential cardiac tamponade), respiratory compromise, acute kidney injury, neurological injury, and deep sternal wound infection each occur in ~2–3% of cardiac surgical patients. Each of these has individual risk factors and specific management considerations. General guidelines for patients who have undergone thoracic surgery include early extubation, fluid restriction, effective analgesia, and protective lung ventilation. Thoracic patients are at risk of atelectasis, respiratory infection, bronchial air leak, and right ventricular failure. Positive pressure ventilation is avoided whenever possible particularly after pneumonectomy, but is sometimes necessary in compromised patients. Air leaks are common. Alveolopleural fistulae usually improve with conservative management,whereas bronchopleural fistulae are more likely to require surgical intervention. Lung surgery is high risk for patients with ischaemic heart disease. Patients with pre-existing elevated pulmonary vascular resistance may exhibit right ventricular dysfunction and may fail to cope with a further increase in pulmonary vascular resistance consequent to lung resection. Lung collapse and infection are constant risks throughout the entire post-operative period.

Punching the Clock takes the best of psychological science to explore whether humans will effectively adapt to the gig economy and the Future of Work. Although the world of work is changing at unprecedented speed, the drives and needs of workers have not. Technology in the form of artificial intelligence and robotic process automation continues to transform jobs, taking away routine tasks from workers, both cognitive and physical alike. Work is broken down into smaller and smaller packets that can be seamlessly reintegrated into broader work products. Workers no longer need to be full-time employees or even reside on the same continent. Rather, tenuous relationships with contractors, freelancers, volunteers, or other third parties have become the norm, using talent platforms to find and complete work. Yet, inside the minds of workers, the needs and biases that govern behavior continue as if nothing has happened. Like any other social environment, workplaces key into deep psychological processes that have developed over millennia and dictate with whom and how workers interact. Psychologists working across disciplines have amassed a great deal of insight about the human psyche but have not always been adept at articulating the practical implications of this insight, let alone how the human psyche will likely react to the gig economy. This book fills this void in knowledge by explaining what is really going on in the minds of coworkers, bringing this to life with a few surprising stories from the real world. Unlike the external world, the human psyche is a relative constant, which raises questions about just how much of the Future of Work can be realized without breaking down the social fabric of the workplace.

Constantly in the news and the subject of much public debate, fracking, as it is known for short, is one of the most promising yet controversial methods of extracting natural gas and oil. Today, 90 percent of natural gas wells use fracking. Though highly effective, the process-which fractures rock with pressurized fluid-has been criticized for polluting land, air, and water, and endangering human health. A timely addition to Oxford's What Everyone Needs to Know series, Hydrofracking tackles this contentious topic, exploring both sides of the debate and providing a clear guide to the science underlying the technique. In concise question-and-answer format, Alex Prud'homme cuts through the maze of opinions and rhetoric to uncover key points, from the economic and political benefits of fracking to the health dangers and negative effects on the environment. Prud'homme offers clear answers to a range of fundamental questions, including: What is fracking fluid? How does it impact water supplies? Who regulates the industry? How much recoverable natural gas exists in the U.S.? What new innovations are on the horizon? Supporters as diverse as President Obama and the conservative billionaire T. Boone Pickens have promoted natural gas as a clean, "21st-century" fuel that will reduce global warming, create jobs, and provide tax revenues, but concerns remain, with environmental activists like Bill McKibben and others leading protests to put an end to fracking as a means of obtaining alternative energy. Prud'homme considers ways to improve methods in the short-term, while also exploring the possibility of transitioning to more sustainable resources-wind, solar, tidal, and perhaps nuclear power-for the long term. Written for general readers, Hydrofracking clearly explains both the complex science of fracking and the equally complex political and economic issues that surround it, giving readers all the information they need to understand what will no doubt remain a contentious issue for years to come.

TOWARDS THE NEW LIFE Theology and Importance of Christian Initiation for the Life of Faith The book is in equal parts a presentation and an invitation. The subject matter of both is the mystagogical initiation leading to the personal encounter with God and eventually to the union within the Church in Christ, which happens initially and particualry in the sacramental liturgy. Mystagogy was the essential experience of life in the early Church and now is being so intensely discussed and postulated by the ecclesial Magisterium and through the teaching of the recent popes and synods. Within the ten chapters of this book the reader proceeds through the aspects strictly associated with Christian initiation, noticeable in catechumenate and suggestive for further Christian life. It is not surprising then, that the study begins with answering the question about the sense of dealing with catechumenate at all. The response developed in the first chapter covers four key points: the contemporary state of our faith, the need for dialogue in evangelization, the importance of liturgy in the renewal of faith and the obvious requirement of follo- wing the Church’s Magisterium, quite explicit in the subject undertaken within this book. The introductory chapter is meant to evoke interest in catechumenate as such and encourage comprehension of its essence, in order to keep it in mind while planning contemporary evangelization. For doing this with success and avoiding pastoral archeology, we need a competent insight into the main message and goal of Christian initiation. Catechumenate is the first and most venerable model of formation and growth in faith and therefore worth knowing. The second chapter tries to cope with the reasons and ways of the present return to the sources of catechumenate with respect to Christian initiation understood to be the building of the relationship with God. The example of catechumenate helps us to discover, how to learn wisely from the history. This would definitely mean to keep the structure and liturgy of catechumenate as a vehicle of God’s message, which must be interpreted and adapted always anew and with careful and intelligent consideration of the historical flavour on particular stages within the history of salvation and cultural conditions of the recipients. For that reason we refer to the Biblical resources and to the historical examples of catechumenate including its flourishing and declining periods, after which we are slowly approaching the present reinterpretation of the catechumenal process enhanced by the official teaching of the Church. As the result of the latter, particularly owing to the Vatican Council II, we are now dealing with the renewed liturgy of baptism displayed in two liturgical books: The Rite of Baptism for Children and the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). This version for adults is the subjectmatter of the whole chapter, in which a reader can find theological analyses of the particular rites as well as numerous indications for improving one’s life with Christ in the Church. You can find interesting associations among the rites of initiation themselves and astounding coherence between those rites and the sacraments of the Eucharist, penance and other sacraments, which simply means the ordinary life of faith. Deep and convincing theology of the process of initiation proves the inspiring spiritual power of the initial and constitutive sacraments of baptism and confirmation, which may seem attractive not only for catechumens but also for the faithful baptized in their infancy, and even more, since they might have not yet had a chance to see what a plausible treasure they have been conveying in their baptismal personality. How much challenge for further and constant realization in life may offer these introductory events of Christian initiation, yet not sufficiently appreciated by those who have already been baptized and confirmed! We all should submit to permanent re-evangelization according to this primary pattern, which always remains essential and fundamental. Very typical and very post-conciliar approach to Christian formation appears in the communal dimension, which guards and guarantees the ecclesial profile of initiation and prepares a person to be a living member of the Church. The sixth chapter of the book is dealing with ecclesial issues in liturgy. They refer to comprehending the word of God, especially in the context of liturgy, which brings about a peculiar theological sense to it and giving a special character to proclaiming the Gospel, which the Pope Francis calls “liturgical proclamation”. The ecclesial premises influence the responsibility for the fact of accompanying the candidates, who aim at becoming Christ’s disciples. As the Church is teaching also in the theological and pastoral introduction to the RCIA, this is the duty of all Christians, which means: priests, religious and the lay, because the Church is one organism in whose womb the new members are conceived and raised. As this fact is strongly claimed by the Church the method of initiation arises to great importance. The seventh chapter is dedicated to the analysis of the catechumenal method stemming from Christ’s pedagogy and His mystery of Incarnation introducing a very important issue of implementing the Divine into the human. The chapter concerning this method opens a more practical part of the book. The crucial message of it is to make mystagogy a natural and obvious method which is the way of building bonds with Christ in the community of the people who already have these bonds and who are eager to tighten them and are aware of the beauty and necessity of closeness with Christ. Christian initiation is the process of entering the Kingdom of God and meeting Christ up to the union with Him – not so much learning dogmas and moral requirements. This is a special time when candidates-catechumens-elected mature in love and in their attitude to Christ and people, which results in prayer and new way of life. As in the past catechumenate nowadays inspires the faithful in their imagination of love and mercy as well as reminds us about various important details of the paschal way of life, which constitute our baptismal vocation, but may be forgotten and now with the help of catechumenate can be recognized anew, while accompanying adults on their catechumenal way. The book is meant for those who are already involved in catechumenal process and are responsible for the rites and formation as well as for those who are interested in what the Church is offering to all who consciously decide to know and follow Christ. You can learn from this book, what is the nature and specificity of the method suggested by the Rite itself for guiding people to God the Saviour and to the community of His people. The aim of the study is to present the universal way of evangelization, which was suggested and revealed by God in His pedagogy, particularly through Jesus Christ and smoothly adopted by the early Church. This way, which can be called a method, is so complete, substantial and clear that it deserves rediscovery, description and promotion, which has already started in the Church’s teaching by making direct references to such categories as: initiation, catechumenate, liturgical formation, the rereading the Mystery of Christ, the living participation in the Mystery and faith nourished by the Mystery. The most engaging point with Christian initiation is the fact, that this seems to be the most effective way of reviving the parish, taking place on the solid and safe ground of liturgy with the most convincing and objective fact that is our baptism and our new identity born in baptismal regenerating bath. On the grounds of our personal relationship with God and our Christian vocation we can become active apostles of Christ. Evangelization begins with ourselves and in our hearts. Thinking about the Church’s mission, we should have in mind our personal mission within the Church and we should refer to it’s roots – first to our immersion into Christ’s death and resurrection and to the anointment with the Holy Spirit. In this Spirit we have all been sent to follow Christ wherever He goes, not necessarily where we would like to direct our steps, but He would. Let us cling to Him and follow Him! Together with the constantly transforming and growing Church! Towards the new life!