Rain Storm

Barry Eisler has given us a new hero - Japanese-American John Rain, the cynical, romantic, conscientious assassin - one of the most clever and vibrant protagonists we've seen in years. In this new novel, Rain has fled to Brazil to escape the killing business and the enemies encircling him. But his knack for making death seem to have been from "natural causes" and his ability to operate unnoticed in Asia continue to create unwelcome demand for his services. His old employer, the CIA, persuades him to take on a high-risk assignment: a ruthless arms dealer operating in Southeast Asia." The upside? Financial, of course, along with the continued chimera of moral redemption. But first, Rain will have to survive the downside: a second assassin homing in on the target; the target's consort, an alluring woman with an agenda of her own; and the possibility that the entire mission is nothing but an elaborate setup. From the gorgeous beaches of Rio to the glitzy casinos of Macau to the gritty back streets of Hong Kong and Kowloon, Rain becomes a reluctant player in an international game far deadlier and more insidious than any he has encountered before.

1887-1907 consist of the mayor's annual message and the annual reports of the Public Works Department and the Water Bureau; 1908-1912, of the Department and Bureau reports.

A celebration of a remarkable, overlooked musical great. Born blind into a life of slavery, Thomas Wiggins was dismissed as a "useless burden." But through the loving protection of his family, he went on to become one of the greatest musicians of his time. From Tom's childhood on a plantation to his performances in the concert halls of Europe, Glenda Armand shares the beautiful and at times heartbreaking story of a long-overlooked musical great, the love that supported him, and the struggle for freedom.

One major threat to cities at present is the increasing rainstorm waterlogging hazards due to climate change and accelerated urbanization. This paper explores the mechanism of rainstorm waterlogging and enables the fine simulation of surface water propagation over complex urban terrain. A novel community-scale waterlogging modeling scheme is presented by loosely coupling a one-dimensional sewer model with a two-dimensional overland model under an open-source framework. The coupled model was applied to Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone located in Pudong New Area of Shanghai. To quantify the influence of rainfall intensity and drainage conditions on the waterlogging, 12 scenarios were constructed by combining four rainfall return periods (3, 5, 10, and 20 a) and three startup water depths (1.5, 2.0, and 2.5 m) of pump stations. The multi-scenario simulation results show that the waterlogging risk increases from north to south in the study area, and that risk zones with water depth above 0.3 m are mostly concentrated in the southwest and southeast corners of the site. The longer the rainfall return period, the larger the submerged area, and the spatial distribution of surface water accumulation is affected by local topography and drainage system. In addition, reducing the startup water depth of pump stations has an obvious effect on inhibiting the severity of water accumulation. The results provide insights into overland flow across an urban area with densely populated buildings and help to reduce the risk of rainstorm-induced waterlogging disasters.