This comprehensive textbook helps social workers understand and meet the needs of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. It outlines approaches to a range of everyday problems associated with issues of oppression, family acceptance, shame, identity development, HIV disease, and addiction. The first of the book's three sections provides an overview of what it means to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual, and locates the text within the ecological model of social work on individual, interpersonal, and institutional levels of intervention. This section includes definitions of sexual orientation, forms of heterosexism and homophobia, and issues of community among gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. The second section covers life transitions, including childhood, adolescence, and late life, as well as sexual relationships, parenting, and life in the workplace. The last part covers the special issues and challenges of mental health, substance abuse, violence (both "gay bashing" and domestic violence), and HIV disease. The final chapter pulls together the practice concepts introduced in the book and provides a blueprint for knowledge development and dissemination in the field.

High school senior Nate Whitby is not gay. Well, not really. Okay, so he's only attracted to guys. And he's had sex with several. But he knows it's just a phase. He always figured that, along the road to becoming an adult, he'd mutate into someone who preferred Keira Knightley to Chris Hemsworth. It would just happen, like puberty. But as adulthood approaches and his transformation has yet to begin, he panics. Taking desperate measures to change his sexual orientation, Nate finds himself mired in surreal situations populated by, among others, his overbearing mom, current-and former-best friends, a dominatrix, and a muumuu-wearing psychic. Eventually he's not sure who's trying to help and who's doing more harm than good. But he's determined to find himself-his true self. After all, where there's a will, there's a way... right?

Proceedings of the 2002 Neural Information Processing Systems Conference.

The proceedings collect the latest research trends, methods and experimental results in the field of electrical and information technologies for rail transportation. The topics cover intelligent computing, information processing, communication technology, automatic control, and their applications in rail transportation etc. The proceedings can be a valuable reference work for researchers and graduate students working in rail transportation, electrical engineering and information technologies.

"Stew brings us the story of a young bohemian who charts a course for 'the real' through sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll."--Page 4 of cover.

If you were to travel the world, you would quickly come to realize that the vast majority of humanity has the same list of wants and needs: food, shelter, water, education, justice and safety, to name a few. Joys and sorrows, hopes and desperations are also similar in many ways. Even though it sometimes justifies our personal paradigm to believe differently, WE ARE ALL FUNDAMENTALLY THE SAME. If at the core we are all the same, why then is it that we collectively are having such a hard time? Essentially, this last question is where the inspiration for this book comes from. The content of the book comes from the authors decades of research, observations and experiences gained while living and working in more than nine different countries, visiting over sixty countries spread on six continents. A love, a passion and ultimately, a belief that humanity has the power to choose to create a better life for all is the driving force behind this exploration of human suffering and how to ultimately rise above it. This need for a better life for all has never been as apparent as it is now. Our collective denial of the reality of suffering is being confronted. We are starting to realize that there is no choice but to deal with it: problems are not going away but rather, they seem to be multiplying exponentially. Perhaps we live in times where it has become luxurious thinking to believe that someone else will fix the environment, the economy, social injustices, international conflicts, human trafficking, or poverty. It is time for greatness on a mass level to be expressed. This book is meant to appeal to the heart more than the mind. The expression analyzing something to death couldnt be more appropriate than now. All potential progress seems to be continuously stalled with the belief that there is a need to generate more data to really understand the problems. Will we die as a species because of our minds obsession for analysis or will our hearts see through the smoke of insanity, put out the fires so that at some point, hopefully sooner than later, the mind will be able to see clearly through its confusion. Ultimately, the question is how will we individually and collectively deal with the problems currently facing humanity? This question is essentially addressed to the vast majority of humanity as most are suffering from the excessive greed that has swept the planet. There are countless ways one can contribute to the betterment of the world. It always starts with people taking one small step to make a difference. It starts with YOU! Never underestimate the power that one person has to change the world. The purpose of the book is threefold: to bring about an awareness of the current situation on the planet so that people can start to question their current paradigm and see how they feed into the problems rather than help solve them; to encourage a new level of personal responsibility that is necessary in any time of change or crisis; and provide information and tools to help in the transformational process by empowering people. The book is divided into three parts: Part 1: Its All About Me, Isnt It? The Individual Part 2: What About the Others? The Collective Part 3: Together The Individual and the Collective Each part has a different number of chapters. The general book outline follows: Foreword: This part introduces why the book was written. The foreword sets the stage for what is to come in the book and encourages the reader to read right through as some chapters are more challenging than others and that the solutions proposed are spread throughout the book. Part 1: Its All About Me, I

This book is a collection of research results in a wide range of topics related to human–robot interaction, both physical and cognitive, including theories, methodologies, technologies, and empirical and experimental studies. The works contained in the book have been presented at the 14th International Workshop on Human-Friendly Robotics (HFR 2021), organized by the University of Bologna (Bologna, Italy, October 28–29, 2021), and they describe the most original achievements in the field of human–robot interaction coming from the ideas of young researchers. The intended readership of the book is any researcher in the field of robotics interested to research problems related to human–robot coexistence, like robot interaction control, robot learning, and human–robot co-working.