UK church attendance hemorrhaging and one course is hailed as the most effective tool for "turning back the tide." From small beginnings in the early 1970s, Alpha has grown to become a global success. Churches from across the denominational spectrum have enthusiastically seized upon the course, seeing it as the remedy for declining church attendance. Inside Alpha explores such claims through richly grounded qualitative research on six Alpha courses. It assesses Alpha's primary aim of converting non-churchgoers and its longer-term goal of spiritual maturity (Colossians 1:28-29). It questions whether the Alpha program is as successful as it claims at uniting evangelism and discipleship, mission and spiritual formation. This is an invaluable study for those--in the academy and the church--who have an interest in ecclesiology and mission. How exactly is one to understand conversion? What is it to "be Christian"? How does ambiguity and doubt fit within one's journey of faith? The importance of this work is in discovering--through an engagement with Alpha--how people might appropriately be initiated into and discipled within the Christian faith in contemporary culture.

"The next full-moon night is coming, and I really don't want to be a rogue. I need someone to help me, by having sex with me!" The Alpha murmured desperately. *** Heller was an Alpha, and he already had a mate that he loved, Mira, but now he was desperately in need of a new one. Mira was in the hospital, in a coma for a year, but that was not the main reason for Heller to find a new mate. The main reason was more complicated-he was supposed to have sex with his new and fated mate during the next full moon and quieten and placate his wolf, to make him less disturbing and destructive, and most importantly, stop himself from turning to a rogue. On that rainy Monday morning, Heller met his fated mate, Leah. "It was ridiculous that the Moon Goddess would choose someone like her to be my mate! She didn't even know she got werewolf blood running in her veins! She just thought she was a damn human!" But for Leah, wasn't this whole thing more ridiculous? Could she end up being Heller's Luna? Or just his sex tool?

Human experience with nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) warfare has been limited, especially in comparison to conventional forms of warfare. Our experience with nuclear warfare is confined to a period of less than one week during the end of World War II, when the United States successfully used two nuclear weapons against targets in Japan. The course of biological warfare and modern use of biological weapons are difficult to track owing to the difficulty of differentiating deliberate use from natural outbreaks. However, the keen potential of biological weapons in acts of terror was shown in the mass disruption caused in the fall 2001 experience in the U.S. with the release of anthrax through the American postal system. Chemical weapons have been used in a handful of conflicts since their introduction to modern warfare during World War I, most recently during the Iran-Iraq War during the 1980s. Despite this limited experience, NBC warfare continues to exert a certain fascination among states. The A to Z of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Warfare covers the development and use of NBC weapons as well as efforts to limit or control the use of these weapons through a chronology, a bibliography, an introductory essay, and dictionary entries. Over 500 cross-referenced dictionary entries provide a unique selection of terms related to NBC warfare, ranging from basic descriptions of substances used in NBC warfare to details on incidents and episodes where NBC weapons were used. Entries are structured around historical events, persons important to NBC warfare, countries where such weapons have been developed or used, and international treaties and treaty-related organizations.

Eighteen-year Lyle of the Blood Moon pack was devastated when the man she loved more than her life left her for another woman. Her heart became numb with pain and she grew colder. She vowed never to fall in love. Until... She met her competitor and enemy, the ruthless, dark and mysterious Alpha Ryder of the Silver Moon pack. During the course of events, she has to stick with him in order to stay safe. On a mission of life and death, Ryder finds himself protecting the pup. With a heart made of steel, he resists her attraction. Will Lyle be able to give herself another chance? Will Alpha Ryder get attracted to the pup? With enemies around them, can they deny their natural instincts—or will they succumb to their fate?

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th Computer Games Workshop, CGW 2016, and the 5th Workshop on General Intelligence in Game-Playing Agents, GIGA 2016, held in conjunction with the 25th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI 2016, in New York, USA, in July 2016.The 12 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 25 submissions. The papers address all aspects of artificial intelligence and computer game playing. They discuss topics such as Monte-Carlo methods; heuristic search; board games; card games; video games; perfect and imperfect information games; puzzles and single player games; multi-player games; combinatorial game theory; applications; computational creativity; computational game theory; evaluation and analysis; game design; knowledge representation; machine learning; multi-agent systems; opponent modeling; planning.

Special edition of the Federal Register, containing a codification of documents of general applicability and future effect ... with ancillaries.

Food-borne bacterial pathogens encounter a number of stressors during food processing and preservation. More and more pathogens are able to adapt their physiological properties and/or genetic expression to survive these stressors and pose a risk to food safety and public health. This book provides the reader with a comprehensive overview of common food processing-associated stressors (e.g., heat, cold, acid, osmosis, and oxidation) and deals with the molecular basis of the respective bacterial stress response mechanisms (e.g., viable but nonculturable state, biofilm formation, sporulation, and cross-protection response). Additionally, various chapters cover the response mechanisms of foodborne pathogens to emerging nonthermal sterilisation technologies such as ultrasound, high-pressure processing, pulsed electric fields, ultraviolet light, irradiation and phytochemicals. Through this book we also learn about future prospects for the efficient control of stress adaption in foodborne pathogens to ensure maximum consumer safety. This book offers a valuable resource for researchers, graduate students, food process engineers and product developers in the fields of food science and microbiology.