The Synthetic Beast

The five-volume set LNCS 3980-3984 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications, ICCSA 2006. The volumes present a total of 664 papers organized according to the five major conference themes: computational methods, algorithms and applications high performance technical computing and networks advanced and emerging applications geometric modelling, graphics and visualization information systems and information technologies. This is Part II.

Chu Han's frown deepened, and he said with a heavy voice, "I want to be promoted, not by these crooked ways, but by my personal ability

This thing is obviously a treasure that can simulate the entire Yitian City model. As for the black air moving around in the light curtain, it naturally symbolizes the demon army that is about to arrive at Yitian City. It seems that these black energy are extremely slow, but in fact the demon army is definitely rolling in at an astonishing speed.

The flame of rebellion burns across the solar system in this dazzling conclusion to Linden A. Lewis’s stunning First Sister trilogy perfect for fans of Red Rising, The Handmaid’s Tale, and The Expanse. Astrid is finally free of the Sisterhood, yet her name carries on. She’s called the Unchained by those she’s inspired and the Heretic by those who want her voiceless once more. Now Astrid uses knowledge of the Sisterhood’s inner workings against them, aiding the moonborn in raids against abbeys and Cathedrals, all the while exploring the mysteries of her forgotten past. However, the Sisterhood thrives under the newly appointed Mother Lilian I, who’s engaged in high-stakes politics among the Warlords and the Aunts to rebuild the Sisterhood in her own image. But the evil of the Sisterhood can’t be purged with anything less than fire... Meanwhile, Hiro val Akira is a rebel without an army, a Dagger without a Rapier. As protests rock the streets of Cytherea, Hiro moves in the shadows, driven by grief and vengeance, as they hunt the man responsible for all their pain: their father... Transformed by the Genekey virus, Luce navigates the growing schism within the Asters on Ceres. Hurting in her new body, she works to bridge two worlds seemingly intent on mutual destruction. All while mourning her fallen brother, though Lito sol Lucius’s memory may yet live on. Yet Souji val Akira stands in judgment on them all, plotting the future for all of humanity, and running out of time before war erupts between the Icarii and Geans. But can even the greatest human intellect outwit the Synthetics? This “sprawling, queer space opera” (NPR) trilogy comes to a sensational climax in this final installment, and is a must-read for science fiction fans everywhere.

Those familiar with John O'Loughlin's work, particularly with his writings of the past few years, will know that he likes to combine philosophy, or a logically structured way of writing derived from years of abstract thought, with other approaches to text, including autobiographical, psychological, poetical (to a degree), historical, political, religious, and analytical, so that the results, sometimes confusing, are rarely predictable, but can take you by surprise, as when you pass from an autobiographical sketch or a political observation straight into an intensely analytical or philosophical section, though usually not without some forewarning or a lacuna of some sort in the layout of the text. So it is here, in this remarkable collection of structured aphorisms and maxims and what might appear to be essays but are, in fact, aphorisms of a more discursive nature within a title-shunning format that eschews paragraphs in keeping with its aphoristic bias – rather Nietzschean in a way – that he long ago identified with the concept of 'supernotes', or notes that have been copied from a notebook and reworked and refined and expanded upon until they resemble short essays, without, however, conceding much else to essayistic tradition. In such a mainly metaphysical fashion John O'Loughlin has consistently advanced the theoretical breadth and depth of his work, derived, naturally, from habitual thought processes, and the results should speak confidently and credibly enough for themselves without our having to say very much about them, other, of course, than that they continue in the vein to which we have become accustomed the struggle for truth, or philosophical credibility and metaphysical insight, and have continued the process to a new and hopefully final level or stage of completion which it would be difficult if not impossible for him or, for that matter, anyone else to reasonably surpass, bearing in mind the complexities that so exactingly comprehensive an approach to logic as he has fathered both here and in the past inevitably entail. So maybe the job, or task, which this author humbly and somewhat naively set himself over four decades ago, is now completed, and with such a degree of structural credibility that he has even been able to bend the rules and invent one or two new words and new ways of thinking about old words or subjects or categories that, frankly, should stand up to scrutiny and any amount of analytical attention. But, of course, a book of his is an adventure, never quite knowing where it is going or where, eventually, it will get to, and this one is no exception, since the sheer eclecticism of John O'Loughlin's writings makes it difficult to nail it down to a specific title, even if the subtitle he has chosen, viz. 'Attraction and Reaction in Gender Perspective', is certainly quite well-represented in the text, albeit by degrees and not at all at the beginning. Evidently a number of other specific titles came to mind, but none of them would have adequately represented anything but a fraction of the overall text, and so, in the end, he wisely and, we think, correctly opted for a title that would be both sufficiently abstract and sufficiently ambiguous (for it actually is, if you ponder it for a moment) as to do general justice to a style of writing that refuses to follow the usual linear patterns of composition of the 'straight press', including essayists, but gives you so many strands of thought to follow or think about that no single strand, be it philosophical or autobiographical or anything else, could possibly do justice to the entirety of the text, which, as intimated above, is of an intensely eclectic character. That is how he writes, how he prefers to write, and we make no apologies. You can take it or leave it. But those who persevere with his work – and not only here but in previous books – will, if they are sufficiently intelligent and of the right turn-of-mind, be rewarded to a degree that few other books, we venture to assert, would reward them, since few other authors could possibly claim to have achieved as much or to have brought their philosophy to such a conclusively logical pass, and you would have to be a fool or scoundrel not to see that or profit from it!

Deriving its title from the black-covered notebooks which were used in its formative composition, this title brings John O'Loughlin's metaphysical philosophy to its logical conclusion, and is therefore probably the most logically comprehensive of all his works to-date, drawing the various strands of his Social Theocratic philosophy together and presenting it in the uniquely aphoristic style which allows for both formal sequences of related ideas (maxims) and for a more informal presentation of material (aphorisms) that is almost essay-like in its relatively discursive character. That said, the material overall is carefully interwoven and taken well beyond the notebook stage of its inception, so that one can feel confident this is no mere off-the-cuff project but the fruit of meticulous composition which should stand O'Loughlin's philosophy in good stead, as well as add a crucial dimension to it which would not have been possible in the past but which here comes to light in terms of how a basic antithesis, namely that between energy and gravity, plays-out in a number of different or seemingly unrelated contexts in relation to what the author holds to be its gender-conditioned genesis. Some of the material, one should add, has already been published in two previous titles, viz. Stations of the Supercross and Supercrossed, but much of it has been reworked and revised here with the incorporation of some previously omitted content, while much additional original material has also been included to give this project its unique character and justify its publication as, in overall terms, a less formal if not looser version of what might seem to some readers the too formal nature of, in particular, Supercrossed, with its plethora of hyphenated phrases. Therefore this should prove an easier though still far from uncomplicated book to read. - A Centretruths Editorial.

In 2186 technology makes life ideal. With MESH, we leverage millions of minds to help mankind. We program plant DNA and grow Elevator Towers that reach 62 miles to the edge of space. We have Lifebots that keep us alive for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. We discovered thousands of planets that could sustain human life. An aqueous donut shape appears five miles above Earth. With great reservations, the Commission calls the possibly paranoid Colonel Thom Stanton back to special operations to head up TAG 01 to investigate. With Earth’s future in the balance, Thom reluctantly agrees. Within 30 minutes, the attempts on his life start again, he claims. The battle between Thom and the Commission resumes.

The next generation of the astonishing X-Men grow into true super heroes against their deadliest enemies, in this wide-ranging Marvel anthology?. The New Charles Xavier School for Gifted Mutants isn’t all it’s cracked up to be: The food is so-so, and it’s cold eleven out of twelve months, not to mention the creepy bunker vibes with mysterious tech popping up all over the place. But for the latest mutants to take on the mantle of X-Men, it’s home. Under the stewardship of Emma Frost, Cyclops, and Magneto, these new recruits learn to control their powers and defeat villainy. Yet danger lurks within the academy, and it isn’t just monsters or evil geniuses. Now, these fresh X-Men must take what they’ve learned and put their unique powers to the test against unexpected adversaries – from cyborgs and the undead to temporal chaos, and even alternate versions of themselves.