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Margaret, a sculptor, has been contracted to build a life-sized model of "Lucy", an ancestral link to the primate world, at a time when her own life is in total disarray. As the reconstruction progresses, Margaret begins to explore fundamental questions about the human condition and her own perplexing life

This is to all who understand that life is a journey and that to us as parents and educators, we must cooperate with each other when we recognize the defectsbe it physical or behavioralthat plague our children and institutions. This was born out of recognizing that the unease my own child displayed while attending school led me to search for answers wherever they were. I recognized there was a problem, I was concerned, I was inspired by her efforts, and I was encouraged to do something. I took action by attending Teachers College in order to get the hands on experience of teaching and learning so that I could help not only my child but a system that caters to all children. The unease was the root of a problem that stimulated the response that turned into an educational tree journey, thanks to my daughter Karla.

“As practical as it is poetic. . . . an optimistic call to action.” —Chicago Tribune Over time, with industrialization and urban sprawl, we have driven nature out of our neighborhoods and cities. But we can invite it back by designing landscapes that look and function more like they do in the wild: robust, diverse, and visually harmonious. Planting in a Post-Wild World by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West is an inspiring call to action dedicated to the idea of a new nature—a hybrid of both the wild and the cultivated—that can flourish in our cities and suburbs. This is both a post-wild manifesto and practical guide that describes how to incorporate and layer plants into plant communities to create an environment that is reflective of natural systems and thrives within our built world.

The input of mineral fertilizers in agriculture increased drastically in the last 50 years. The use of mineral fertilizers, in particular nitrogen fertilizers requires a high input of energy and can cause nitrogen leakage out of agro-ecosystems. An opportunity to solve this problem is the use of biofertilizers, which contain plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR). The use of associative rhizobacteria is a possibility to make plants profiting from growth promotion and to substitute mineral fertilizers. However, this requires a predictable growth stimulation and in-vitro test system allowing to investigate the mechanisms underlying plant growth promotion. It was therefore the aim of this thesis to establish an in-vitro plant culture system that allows investigating newly isolated rhizobacteria for their plant growth promotion effects and characterizing the mechanisms responsible for growth stimulation. Besides several rhizobacteria, isolated in frame of the EU-RHIBAC project, Raoultella terrigena TFi08N, a soil bacterium isolated in the frame of the former EU-Micro-N-Fix Project (2001-2006) is until now not characterized as a PGPR. In the first part of this thesis, different bacterial strains were investigated for their ability to promote plant growth. A considerable improvement of plant growth, in terms of enhanced dry matter production was found for Raoultella terrigena TFi08N, Azospirillum brasilense SP245, Bacillus megaterium M3 and Bacillus subtilis OSU142 but not for Pseudomonas fluorescens C139. As inoculation with Raoultella terrigena resulted in strong plant stimulation and as it represents a so far uncharacterized PGPR strain, it was decided to study the mechanisms responsible for plant growth promotion conferred by this bacterium in more detail. Evidence for compensatory pH changes in the rhizosphere, a nitrification of supplied ammonium or the release of growth-promoting volatile substances by Raoultella were not found. Regarding the genetic constitution of Arabidopsis, it was observed that the four investigated accession lines responded differently to Raoultella inoculation and that expression of the major root plasma membrane H+-ATPase, AHA2, is required to confer plant growth stimulation. Further considering that Raoultella is able to produce auxin, its growth stimulatory effect may rely on an auxin-induced stimulation of lateral root growth and auxin-stimulated proton extrusion at the root plasma membrane that improves nutrient uptake and plant growth. Although this thesis could not yet fully elucidate the mechanism of plant growth stimulation by Raoultella terrigena TFi08N, it contributes to a better understanding of the possible modes of action of PGPR by defining growth conditions and plant factors required for growth stimulation by Raoultella terrigena TFi08N.

Learn essential life lessons from a woman who refused to be a victim and discovered her true self while putting two notorious con men behind bars. No one could be prepared for the shock that Claudia Nelson faced when she learned that a Ponzi scheme had taken her entire life savings. But she refused to be a victim, and after digging deep within herself to find her true power and determination, Claudia helped hunt down and bring those responsible to justice. In light of her efforts, Forbes Magazine writer Dirk Smillie Sr., called her the “best gumshoe vigilante I have ever met.” In Rising from the Ashes, the acclaimed personal empowerment specialist shares her story of personal justice. She reveals practical and unique solutions that can transform life’s most difficult challenges into positive results every day, exploring such topics as: How to find your powerful, true self by stripping away all that you are not Why certain people are more vulnerable to being conned and abused How your two thought systems can work to either free you or imprison you How to find, and dig out, the root of any problem rather than snipping away at its leaves, empowering you to transform any challenge into a blessing Engaging, entertaining and informative. Rising from Ashes is also transformative—a how-to guide for anyone who wants to overcome adversity and become all they are capable of being.

Many teens who struggle with substance use and addiction also suffer from underlying trauma. In this trauma-informed teen workbook, internationally renowned addiction expert Claudia Black offers skills drawn from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), mindfulness, and grief work to help teens identify the root cause of their addiction; understand, embrace, and regulate their emotions; and stop self-medicating, so they can successfully navigate their road to recovery.

In one exceptional volume, Abstract Algebra covers subject matter typically taught over the course of two or three years and offers a self-contained presentation, detailed definitions, and excellent chapter-matched exercises to smooth the trajectory of learning algebra from zero to one. Field-tested through advance use in the ERASMUS educational project in Europe, this ambitious, comprehensive book includes an original treatment of representation of finite groups that avoids the use of semisimple ring theory and explains sets, maps, posets, lattices, and other essentials of the algebraic language; Peano's axioms and cardinality; groupoids, semigroups, monoids, groups; and normal subgroups.