Kelvin is a 33-year-old property developer living in a small Lancashire town. He has five close friends, all in well-paid jobs. Having bought their lovely houses cheaply in the early 1990s, they are free to spend money on their own pleasures - particularly clothes, meals and cars. Most of all, their life revolves around going to see things - art exhibitions, comedians, live music, plays... When we first meet the six friends they are on their way to see a new kind of circus. Once there Kelvin does something unforgivable to a clown, has a strange snack and meets the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. It's the beginning of the end of the good life.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic describes that country's turbulent political events from 1962 to summer 1965.

The International Symposium on Dynamics of Vehicles on Roads and Tracks is the leading international gathering of scientists and engineers from academia and industry in the field of ground vehicle dynamics to present and exchange their latest innovations and breakthroughs. Established in Vienna in 1977, the International Association of Vehicle System Dynamics (IAVSD) has since held its biennial symposia throughout Europe and in the USA, Canada, Japan, South Africa and China. The main objectives of IAVSD are to promote the development of the science of vehicle dynamics and to encourage engineering applications of this field of science, to inform scientists and engineers on the current state-of-the-art in the field of vehicle dynamics and to broaden contacts among persons and organisations of the various countries engaged in scientific research and development in the field of vehicle dynamics and related areas. IAVSD 2017, the 25th Symposium of the International Association of Vehicle System Dynamics was hosted by the Centre for Railway Engineering at Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Australia in August 2017. The symposium focused on the following topics related to road and rail vehicles and trains: dynamics and stability; vibration and comfort; suspension; steering; traction and braking; active safety systems; advanced driver assistance systems; autonomous road and rail vehicles; adhesion and friction; wheel-rail contact; tyre-road interaction; aerodynamics and crosswind; pantograph-catenary dynamics; modelling and simulation; driver-vehicle interaction; field and laboratory testing; vehicle control and mechatronics; performance and optimization; instrumentation and condition monitoring; and environmental considerations. Providing a comprehensive review of the latest innovative developments and practical applications in road and rail vehicle dynamics, the 213 papers now published in these proceedings will contribute greatly to a better understanding of related problems and will serve as a reference for researchers and engineers active in this specialised field. Volume 1 contains 78 papers under the subject heading Road.

The rise of the platform economy into statelike dominance over the lives of entrepreneurs, users, and workers. The early Internet was a lawless place, populated by scam artists who made buying or selling anything online risky business. Then Amazon, eBay, Upwork, and Apple established secure digital platforms for selling physical goods, crowdsourcing labor, and downloading apps. These tech giants have gone on to rule the Internet like autocrats. How did this happen? How did users and workers become the hapless subjects of online economic empires? The Internet was supposed to liberate us from powerful institutions. In Cloud Empires, digital economy expert Vili Lehdonvirta explores the rise of the platform economy into statelike dominance over our lives and proposes a new way forward. Digital platforms create new marketplaces and prosperity on the Internet, Lehdonvirta explains, but they are ruled by Silicon Valley despots with little or no accountability. Neither workers nor users can “vote with their feet” and find another platform because in most cases there isn’t one. And yet using antitrust law and decentralization to rein in the big tech companies has proven difficult. Lehdonvirta tells the stories of pioneers who helped create—or resist—the new social order established by digital platform companies. The protagonists include the usual suspects—Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Travis Kalanick of Uber, and Bitcoin’s inventor Satoshi Nakamoto—as well as Kristy Milland, labor organizer of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, and GoFundMe, a crowdfunding platform that has emerged as an ersatz stand-in for the welfare state. Only if we understand digital platforms for what they are—institutions as powerful as the state—can we begin the work of democratizing them.

Some questions, you may not want to know the answers to. Journalist Will Harden is well equipped for most situations, but nothing can prepare him for what's about to come. Relocating from the big city to a small mountain town with his wife, everything is turned upside-down the moment she goes missing. Are the rumors of alien abductions true or did something far worse happen to his wife? No matter the cause, Harden will not stop until he uncovers the truth, or dies trying. Written and created by Frank Mastromauro, featuring artwork by the talented newcomer Marco Lorenzana, OVERTAKEN is going to take your breath away and leave you gasping for more!