Bøger af Stephen Murray

A book of 31 sermons that can be used by anyone for guidance in every day life.

This book is a historical accounting of Canada's R&D programs in infrared signature suppression (IRSS) for military platforms, particularly warships and tactical helicopters. The R&D program that took place at Defence Research Establishment Suffield (DRES) between 1975 and 1980 is detailed. The Canadian Navy was preparing to build new City class patrol frigates and to refit existing Tribal class DDH-280 destroyers at the time. The most significant infrared (IR) emitter on a warship is the hot engine exhaust ducts. An IRSS system capable of preventing heat-seeking missiles from detecting warships was invented. The "DRES Ball" is a cooled exhaust system with optical blockage. It was patented in 1982 and later licensed to W.R. Davis Engineering Limited ("Davis"). The DRES Ball was installed on all Canadian Patrol Frigates and a light-weight variant, known as the "Eductor/Diffuser," was installed on all DDH-280 destroyers. Both maritime systems were adapted for use on tactical helicopters and 30 Canadian CH-146 "Griffon" helicopters are fitted with these systems today. Davis was involved in all of this work under contracts with the Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) in which DND retained ownership of all intellectual property (IP).Software dubbed "ShipIR" was developed to model the IR signature of warships beginning in 1992. A module known as the Naval Threat Countermeasures Simulator (NTCS) was also developed capable of modelling the engagement between a warship and an incoming IR-guided missile. ShipIR/NTCS was developed by Davis under contracts with DND. It has been the NATO standard software for IR studies for the last two decades.Having addressed the most significant IR emitters on warships, attention turned to the problem of IR radiation from sun-heated surfaces of the ship. This work began in 2003. The Onboard Signature Manager allows the ship operator to control the ship's IR signature in real time. The ship's skin is divided into zones that are fitted with temperature sensors and spray nozzles. Sea water is sprayed on the skin to maintain a temperature that enables the ship to blend in with the sky/sea background. A sea water injection system was also developed that further cools the exhaust gases from the ship's engines. These Davis proposed concepts were reduced to practice under contracts with DND. The second theme and major focus of the book is on the mismanagement of the IRSS intellectual property (IP) by Canadian Patents and Development Limited (CPDL) and DND as well as the unauthorized use and misappropriation of that IP by Davis. The book describes a 22-year long dispute between DND and the inventors that began with letters of complaint, the filing of formal grievances, and finally the conduct of a Crown-funded Independent Review intended to settle the matter. The Independent Reviewer concluded that serious communication problems within government had resulted in a deficient license being issued to Davis. The license had also been poorly administered and not enforced. The Reviewer was also critical that the license duration was the term of the patents rather than the useful life of the technology. The Reviewer recommended that: (i) Davis be approached to amend the license retroactively and that legal action be taken if Davis refused to do so, and (ii) the inventors be compensated for unrealized royalties. Neither recommendation was implemented. The inventors subsequently filed a lawsuit against DND and Davis. The suit was dismissed more than 14 years later on the basis of undue delay. A second law suit for solicitor's negligence was filed after Davis was able to extricate himself from the action due to a procedural error. That suit was eventually settled by the Alberta Lawyers Insurance Association. Davis has sold an estimated $1B worth of IRSS products world-wide. The inventors have only received about $6,000 in royalties under the terms of the Public Servants Inventions Act.

This is the Second World War story of two Dutch-Canadian soldiers from Montreal; Captain Jack De Vries, an intelligence officer, and his younger enlisted brother, Tomas. After the carnage and bloodshed of the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, they fight their way through France only to discover the brutal murder of Canadian prisoners at the hands of the fanatical German, Hitler-Youth 12th S.S. panzer division, led by Colonel Kurt Meyer. Enraged at the atrocities, Jack assembles a small elite force of Canadian infantry and armoured soldiers who lead a mechanised spearhead through France, Belgium, and the Netherlands in pursuit of Colonel Meyer to bring him and his ruthless teenage soldiers to justice. Enduring the deprivations, and horrors of war, the young Canadians must bond together to liberate the long-suffering Dutch people only to discover the true savagery of Nazi tyranny.

Staying Strong is an immensely human story of how a working-class boy from Tyneside in the north of England became a world champion BMX dirt rider in America then went downhill through partying and drugs and alcohol, until he hit rock bottom. But, with determination and hard work, Stephen Murray had the tenacity to fight his way back to the top of his sport and, in 2007, he was once again riding in a world championship final. Then tragedy struck he crashed and broke his neck, flat-lined three times, and ended up paralysed from the shoulders down. Though he lost the use of most of his body, Stephen never lost the fighting spirit that made him world champion and saved his life. Now he fights on a different front, staying strong in the face of everyday adversities, with a super-human mental resilience that inspires quadriplegics and action sports athletes the world over. His story is inspirational and his book is a triumph of the soul. The limited edition collectors hardback is personally signed by Stephen Murray (only from www.stysrg.com) available on Amazon.

In this groundbreaking work, Stephen Murray seizes a rare opportunity to explore the relationship between verbal and visual culture by presenting a sermon that may have been preached during the second half of the thirteenth century in or near the cathedral of Notre-Dame of Amiens, whose sculptural program was completed at about the same time. In addition to providing a complete transcription and translation of the text, Murray examines the historical context of the sermon and draws comparisons between its underlying structure and the Gothic portals of the cathedral. In the sermon, as in the cathedral, he finds a powerful motivational mechanism that invites the repentant sinner to enter into a new contract with the Virgin Mary. The correlation between elements of the sermon's text and the sculptural components of the cathedral leads to an exploration of the socioeconomic conditions in Picardy at the time and a vivid sketch of how the cathedral and its images were used by ordinary people. The author finds parallels in the rhetorical tools used in the sermon, on the one hand, and stylistic and compositional tools used in the sculpture, on the other. In addition to providing a fascinating and cogent consideration of medieval beliefs about salvation and redemption, this book also lays the groundwork for a long overdue examination of the performative and textual in relationship to sculpture.

Presents a new way of understanding the great Gothic churches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: as rhetorical constructs. The author traces common analogies between rhetoric and architectural space that date back to late antiquity, and then shows how those links were translated into wood, stone, and space under specific local conditions.

This work provides an examination of the construction of male and female homosexualities. Although the variety of behaviours, subcategories, and meanings of same-sex sex is considerable, Murray argues that there are a few recurring types. He relates the patterns to other sociological institutions.