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Biomimicry for Optimization, Control, and Automation
by Kevin M. PassinoBiomimicry uses our scienti?c understanding of biological systems to exploit ideas from nature in order to construct some technology. In this book, we focus onhowtousebiomimicryof the functionaloperationofthe “hardwareandso- ware” of biological systems for the development of optimization algorithms and feedbackcontrolsystemsthatextendourcapabilitiestoimplementsophisticated levels of automation. The primary focus is not on the modeling, emulation, or analysis of some biological system. The focus is on using “bio-inspiration” to inject new ideas, techniques, and perspective into the engineering of complex automation systems. There are many biological processes that, at some level of abstraction, can berepresentedasoptimizationprocesses,manyofwhichhaveasa basicpurpose automatic control, decision making, or automation. For instance, at the level of everyday experience, we can view the actions of a human operator of some process (e. g. , the driver of a car) as being a series of the best choices he or she makes in trying to achieve some goal (staying on the road); emulation of this decision-making process amounts to modeling a type of biological optimization and decision-making process, and implementation of the resulting algorithm results in “human mimicry” for automation. There are clearer examples of - ological optimization processes that are used for control and automation when you consider nonhuman biological or behavioral processes, or the (internal) - ology of the human and not the resulting external behavioral characteristics (like driving a car). For instance, there are homeostasis processes where, for instance, temperature is regulated in the human body.
Birth of a Nation: The Story of a Newspaper in Kenya
by Gerard LoughranLaunched in Nairobi in 1960, three years before the birth of independent Kenya, the Nation group of newspapers grew up sharing the struggles of an infant nation, suffering the pain of its failures and rejoicing in its successes. Marking its 50th anniversary in 2010, the Nation looks back on its performance as the standard-bearer for journalistic integrity and how far it fell short or supported the loyalty demanded by its founding slogan 'The Truth shall make you free'. The Aga Khan was still a student at Harvard University when he decided that an honest and independent newspaper would be a crucial contribution to East Africa's peaceful transition to democracy. The 'Sunday Nation' and 'Daily Nation' were launched in 1960 when independence for Kenya was not far over the horizon. They quickly established a reputation for honesty and fair-mindedness, while shocking the colonial and settler establishment by calling for the release of the man who could become the nation's first prime minister, Jomo Kenyatta, and early negotiations for 'Uhuru'. By the time of independence, the Nation newspapers were already established at the heart of a literate African leadership, and their importance, both editorial and commercial, would continue to grow. In the decades following independence, the government's attempts to harness the media's communicative power and reach would be at odds with the editors' determination to toe an independent line. Despite the arrests, intimidation and economic pressures suffered by the Nation newspapers, they remained resolutely patriotic, most recently seeking to act as peace brokers in the violence that broke out following the 2007 election.The history of the 'Nation' papers and that of Kenya are closely intertwined; in the heat of its printing presses and philosophical struggles, that story is told here: from committed beginnings to its position today as East Africa's leading newspaper group.
The Birthday Party: A Grammar Tales Book To Support Grammar And Language Development In Children (Grammar Tales)
by Jessica HabibPete and Jem get ready for Belle’s birthday, but get stuck trying to blow up balloons. Targeting Subject-Verb sentences, pronouns and the auxiliary ‘be’, this book provides repeated examples of early developing syntax and morphology which will engage and excite the reader while building pre-literacy skills and make learning fun, as well as exposing children to multiple models of the target grammar form. Perfect for a speech and language therapy session, this book is an ideal starting point for targeting client goals and can also be enjoyed at school or home to reinforce what has been taught in the therapy session.
The Birthday Party: A Grammar Tales Book to Support Grammar and Language Development in Children (Grammar Tales)
by Jessica HabibPete and Jem get ready for Belle’s birthday, but get stuck trying to blow up balloons. Targeting Subject-Verb sentences, pronouns and the auxiliary ‘be’, this book provides repeated examples of early developing syntax and morphology which will engage and excite the reader while building pre-literacy skills and make learning fun, as well as exposing children to multiple models of the target grammar form. Perfect for a speech and language therapy session, this book is an ideal starting point for targeting client goals and can also be enjoyed at school or home to reinforce what has been taught in the therapy session.
Bistatic SAR Clutter Suppression: Theory, Method, and Experiment
by Zhongyu Li Junjie Wu Jianyu Yang Zhutian LiuThis book reports the latest results in the study of clutter suppression and signal processing techniques and focuses on the analysis of non-stationary characteristics of bistatic SAR clutter, DPCA-based clutter suppression method, optimization-based clutter suppression method, sparse recovery-based clutter suppression method, experimental verification and many other aspects, i.e., including the research results of realization technology and experimental verification. Bistatic SAR clutter suppression is the prerequisite and key technique for realizing the detection of moving targets on the ground/sea surface. It is also the frontier and difficult issue of international research in the field of radar. Researchers, engineers and graduate students in radar signal processing can benefit from this book, who wish to learn the core theories, methods and applications of bistatic SAR technologies.
Biting the Wax Tadpole: Misadventures of an Armchair Linguist
by Elizabeth LittleWhat can Johnny Cash’s lyrics teach us about the little-known Tangut dialect? Is ‘tabernacle’ really a swear word in Quebecois? Which language has absolutely no verbs? What is Earth’s politest insult? And what is biting the wax tadpole actually a translation of?*Prepare for a hilarious rollercoaster ride through hundreds of well-known, obscure, difficult, dead and even made-up languages. Elizabeth Little has waded through innumerable verb tables in every available mood and tense, untangled up to eighteen cases of noun, and wrestled with all kinds of complicated adjective, participles and glottal stops to bring you the best and most bizarre quirks of the ways people communicate all around the globe.From the language that has no different word for ‘blue’ or ‘green’, to why Icelanders need official permission to name their children, from what makes a Korean TV hit to what people might think you’re saying if you order eggs in Spain, Biting the Wax Tadpole will ensure you’re never lost for words again. *Coca-Cola, would you believe it?
BKSTS Illustrated Dictionary of Moving Image Technology
by Martin UrenThe fourth edition of the BKSTS dictionary provides clear and concise explanations of the terminology and acronyms encountered in the broadcasting and moving image industries. Convergence of these industries means that those practising within them are increasingly faced with unfamiliar terminology. Martin Uren has reflected this change in his extended choice of industry terms, acronyms and colloquialisms. He provides:- Over 3300 definitions covering film, television, sound and multimedia technologies, together with technical terms from the computing, networks and telecommunications industries.- Nearly 700 acronyms in a quick look-up section.- 26 Appendices of useful technical information across a range of topics. Whether you are an experienced professional or a new industry entrant, you will find this dictionary an essential reference for every-day and specialist jargon.Martin Uren is a broadcast training consultant and member of the Education and Training Committee and the Television Committee of the BKSTS. He is also a member of the SMPTE and the RTS.BKSTS, The Moving Image Society, represents the interests of those who are creatively and technologically involved in the business of providing moving images in all areas of the media.
BKSTS Illustrated Dictionary of Moving Image Technology
by Martin UrenThe fourth edition of the BKSTS dictionary provides clear and concise explanations of the terminology and acronyms encountered in the broadcasting and moving image industries. Convergence of these industries means that those practising within them are increasingly faced with unfamiliar terminology. Martin Uren has reflected this change in his extended choice of industry terms, acronyms and colloquialisms. He provides:- Over 3300 definitions covering film, television, sound and multimedia technologies, together with technical terms from the computing, networks and telecommunications industries.- Nearly 700 acronyms in a quick look-up section.- 26 Appendices of useful technical information across a range of topics. Whether you are an experienced professional or a new industry entrant, you will find this dictionary an essential reference for every-day and specialist jargon.Martin Uren is a broadcast training consultant and member of the Education and Training Committee and the Television Committee of the BKSTS. He is also a member of the SMPTE and the RTS.BKSTS, The Moving Image Society, represents the interests of those who are creatively and technologically involved in the business of providing moving images in all areas of the media.
Black Bonanza: Canada's Oil Sands and the Race to Secure North America's Energy Future
by Alastair SweenyWhat if Canada 's so-called environmental nightmare was really an engineering triumph and the key to a stable and sustainable future? For years, Canadians have been hearing nothing but bad news out of the Athabasca Oil Sands. From 20th Century economists decrying it as a perpetual money-loser in the face of more easily-extracted foreign oil to green groups around the world declaring it the world's worst industrial enterprise, sometimes it seems as though no good could ever come from this so-called dirty resource. But what if developing Canada's Oil Sands was the key to bridging the gap between current petroleum-based economies and the alternative energies that aren't ready for market yet? What if it meant eliminating the threat of Peak Oil and providing economic stability not just for Canada and the rest of North America, but for the world? And what if the environmental costs of the resource were both not nearly as dire as some would have you believe, but currently better than many other options with the industry already making huge advances in sustainability, energy use and water reclamation? That's exactly the case that Alastair Sweeny, author of BlackBerry Planet, argues is at the core of the Athabasca Sands: a bright future. By digging into the past, present and future of oil sands technology, Sweeny cuts through the hype and hysteria and makes a solid and engaging case that the Sands aren't the environmental boogeyman set to destroy humanity, but rather our best hope for a truly stable and sustainable future.
Black Bonanza: Canada's Oil Sands and the Race to Secure North America's Energy Future
by Alastair SweenyWhat if Canada 's so-called environmental nightmare was really an engineering triumph and the key to a stable and sustainable future? For years, Canadians have been hearing nothing but bad news out of the Athabasca Oil Sands. From 20th Century economists decrying it as a perpetual money-loser in the face of more easily-extracted foreign oil to green groups around the world declaring it the world's worst industrial enterprise, sometimes it seems as though no good could ever come from this so-called dirty resource. But what if developing Canada's Oil Sands was the key to bridging the gap between current petroleum-based economies and the alternative energies that aren't ready for market yet? What if it meant eliminating the threat of Peak Oil and providing economic stability not just for Canada and the rest of North America, but for the world? And what if the environmental costs of the resource were both not nearly as dire as some would have you believe, but currently better than many other options with the industry already making huge advances in sustainability, energy use and water reclamation? That's exactly the case that Alastair Sweeny, author of BlackBerry Planet, argues is at the core of the Athabasca Sands: a bright future. By digging into the past, present and future of oil sands technology, Sweeny cuts through the hype and hysteria and makes a solid and engaging case that the Sands aren't the environmental boogeyman set to destroy humanity, but rather our best hope for a truly stable and sustainable future.
Black Book Publishers in the United States: A Historical Dictionary of the Presses, 1817-1990
by Donald Franklin JoyceSince the second decade of the nineteenth century, there have been black-owned book publishers in the United States, addressing the special concerns of black people in ways that other book publishers have not. This is the first work to treat extensively the individual publishing histories of these firms. Though largely ignored by historians, the story of these publishers, as documented in this study, reveals fascinating details of literary history, as well as previously unknown facts about the contribution of blacks to Western civilization.Donald Franklin Joyce offers comprehensive profiles of forty-six publishing companies, selected for inclusion through an examination of major bibliographic works, book advertisements, periodical literature, and business directories. Each profile contains information on the company's publishing history, books and other publications that were released, information sources about the firm, other titles issued, libraries holding titles produced by the publisher, and officers and addresses, where appropriate. Entries are arranged alphabetically by the publisher name, while an appendix presents a geographic listing of the firms and an index offers author, title, and subject access. This work will be an important resource for students, scholars, and researchers interested in cultural and intellectual black history, as well as public and academic libraries seeking specific information on individual publishing companies.
Black Celebrity, Racial Politics, and the Press: Framing Dissent (Routledge Transformations in Race and Media)
by Sarah J. JacksonShifting understandings and ongoing conversations about race, celebrity, and protest in the twenty-first century call for a closer examination of the evolution of dissent by black celebrities and their reception in the public sphere. This book focuses on the way the mainstream and black press have covered cases of controversial political dissent by African American celebrities from Paul Robeson to Kanye West. Jackson considers the following questions: 1) What unique agency is available to celebrities with racialized identities to present critiques of American culture? 2) How have journalists in both the mainstream and black press limited or facilitated this agency through framing? What does this say about the varying role of journalism in American racial politics? 3) How have framing trends regarding these figures shifted from the mid-twentieth century to the twenty-first century? Through a series of case studies that also includes Eartha Kitt, Sister Souljah, and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Jackson illustrates the shifting public narratives and historical moments that both limit and enable African American celebrities in the wake of making public politicized statements that critique the accepted racial, economic, and military systems in the United States.
Black Celebrity, Racial Politics, and the Press: Framing Dissent (Routledge Transformations in Race and Media)
by Sarah J. JacksonShifting understandings and ongoing conversations about race, celebrity, and protest in the twenty-first century call for a closer examination of the evolution of dissent by black celebrities and their reception in the public sphere. This book focuses on the way the mainstream and black press have covered cases of controversial political dissent by African American celebrities from Paul Robeson to Kanye West. Jackson considers the following questions: 1) What unique agency is available to celebrities with racialized identities to present critiques of American culture? 2) How have journalists in both the mainstream and black press limited or facilitated this agency through framing? What does this say about the varying role of journalism in American racial politics? 3) How have framing trends regarding these figures shifted from the mid-twentieth century to the twenty-first century? Through a series of case studies that also includes Eartha Kitt, Sister Souljah, and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Jackson illustrates the shifting public narratives and historical moments that both limit and enable African American celebrities in the wake of making public politicized statements that critique the accepted racial, economic, and military systems in the United States.
Black Radio/Black Resistance: The Life & Times of the Tom Joyner Morning Show
by Micaela di LeonardoEvery weekday, the wildly popular Tom Joyner Morning Show reaches more than eight million radio listeners. The show offers broadly progressive political talk, adult-oriented soul music, humor, advice, and celebrity gossip for largely older, largely working-class black audience. But it's not just an old-school show: it's an activist political forum and a key site reflecting on popular aesthetics. It focuses on issues affecting African Americans today, from the denigration of hard-working single mothers, to employment discrimination and sexual abuse, to the racism and violence endemic to the U.S. criminal justice system, to international tragedies. In Black Radio/Black Resistance, author Micaela di Leonardo dives deep into the Tom Joyner Morning Show's 25 year history inside larger U.S. broadcast history. From its rise in the Clinton era and its responses to key events--9/11, Hurricane Katrina, President Obama's elections and presidency, police murders of unarmed black Americans and the rise of Black Lives Matter, and Donald Trump's ascendancy-it has broadcast the varied, defiant, and darkly comic voices of its anchors, guests, and audience members. di Leonardo also investigates the new synergistic set of cross-medium ties and political connections that have affected print, broadcast, and online reporting and commentary in antiracist directions. This new multiracial progressive public sphere has extraordinary potential for shaping America's future. Thus Black Radio/Black Resistance does far more than simply shed light on a major counterpublic institution unjustly ignored for reasons of color, class, generation, and medium. It demonstrates an alternative understanding of the shifting black public sphere in the digital age. Like the show itself, Black Radio/Black Resistance is politically progressive, music-drenched, and blisteringly funny.
BLACK RADIO,BLACK RESISTANCE C: The Life & Times of the Tom Joyner Morning Show
by Micaela di LeonardoEvery weekday, the wildly popular Tom Joyner Morning Show reaches more than eight million radio listeners. The show offers broadly progressive political talk, adult-oriented soul music, humor, advice, and celebrity gossip for largely older, largely working-class black audience. But it's not just an old-school show: it's an activist political forum and a key site reflecting on popular aesthetics. It focuses on issues affecting African Americans today, from the denigration of hard-working single mothers, to employment discrimination and sexual abuse, to the racism and violence endemic to the U.S. criminal justice system, to international tragedies. In Black Radio/Black Resistance, author Micaela di Leonardo dives deep into the Tom Joyner Morning Show's 25 year history inside larger U.S. broadcast history. From its rise in the Clinton era and its responses to key events--9/11, Hurricane Katrina, President Obama's elections and presidency, police murders of unarmed black Americans and the rise of Black Lives Matter, and Donald Trump's ascendancy-it has broadcast the varied, defiant, and darkly comic voices of its anchors, guests, and audience members. di Leonardo also investigates the new synergistic set of cross-medium ties and political connections that have affected print, broadcast, and online reporting and commentary in antiracist directions. This new multiracial progressive public sphere has extraordinary potential for shaping America's future. Thus Black Radio/Black Resistance does far more than simply shed light on a major counterpublic institution unjustly ignored for reasons of color, class, generation, and medium. It demonstrates an alternative understanding of the shifting black public sphere in the digital age. Like the show itself, Black Radio/Black Resistance is politically progressive, music-drenched, and blisteringly funny.
Black Rainbow: How words healed me: my journey through depression
by Rachel KellyBlack Rainbow is the powerful first-person story of one woman's struggle with depression and how she managed to recover from it through the power of poetry.In 1997, Oxford graduate, working mother and Times journalist Rachel Kelly went from feeling mildly anxious to being completely unable to function within the space of just three days. Prescribed antidepressants by her doctor, and supported by her husband and her family, Rachel slowly began to get better, but her anxiety levels remained high, and six years later, as a stay-at-home mother, she suffered a second collapse even worse than the first.Throughout both of Rachel's periods of severe depression, the healing power of poetry became an integral part of her recovery. As someone who had always loved poetry, it became something for Rachel to cling on to in times of need - from repeating short mantras to learning and reciting entire poems - these words and verses became a powerful force for change in her life. In Black Rainbow Rachel analyses why poetry can be one answer to depression, and the book contains a selected 40 of the poems that provided Rachel with solace and comfort during her breakdown and recovery. At a time when mental health problems and depression are becoming more common, and the stigma around such issues is finally being lifted, this book offers a lifeline for anyone seeking to understand depression and seek new ways to treat it. Poetry is free, has no side-effects and, as Rachel can attest, 'prescribing words instead of pills' can be an incredibly powerful remedy.
BlackBerry Planet: The Story of Research in Motion and the Little Device that Took the World by Storm
by Alastair SweenyBlackBerry Planet is a new tribe of people who simply cannot get along without their favorite device, Research in Motion’s innovative electronic organizer, the BlackBerry. This omnipresent device has gone beyond being the world’s foremost mobile business tool and entered the consumer mainstream as the Swiss Army Knife of smart phones. BlackBerry Planet tells the behind-the-scenes story of how this little device has become the machine that connects the planet. Starting with the early years of Mike Lazaridis’ invention and his founding of RIM at age 23, it details his drive to innovate, developing what was a glorified pager into the essential corporate communicator, used by everyone from dealmakers to the Queen, from movie stars to the entire US Congress. Since 1992, Lazaridis and co-CEO Jim Balsillie together have been the driving force behind the RIM story. With access to senior staffers and former RIM employees, BlackBerry Planet tells the inside story about the branding and marketing success of the BlackBerry, from its use during 9/11, which earned RIM a reputation for security and reliability, to the cultural adoption of the iconic device as a must-have symbol, to the backlash against the addictive properties of the “CrackBerry,” and the various patent suits RIM has had to fight off – including the five-year court battle that resulted in the largest technology patent settlement in US history. As the incredible story of the BlackBerry unfolds, and as RIM battles global giants like Nokia and Apple in the emerging super-phone marketplace, users, fans, investors and competitors can look to BlackBerry Planet for the insight and context of where they’ve been, to try and predict where they’re going.
BlackBerry Planet: The Story of Research in Motion and the Little Device that Took the World by Storm
by Alastair SweenyBlackBerry Planet is a new tribe of people who simply cannot get along without their favorite device, Research in Motion’s innovative electronic organizer, the BlackBerry. This omnipresent device has gone beyond being the world’s foremost mobile business tool and entered the consumer mainstream as the Swiss Army Knife of smart phones. BlackBerry Planet tells the behind-the-scenes story of how this little device has become the machine that connects the planet. Starting with the early years of Mike Lazaridis’ invention and his founding of RIM at age 23, it details his drive to innovate, developing what was a glorified pager into the essential corporate communicator, used by everyone from dealmakers to the Queen, from movie stars to the entire US Congress. Since 1992, Lazaridis and co-CEO Jim Balsillie together have been the driving force behind the RIM story. With access to senior staffers and former RIM employees, BlackBerry Planet tells the inside story about the branding and marketing success of the BlackBerry, from its use during 9/11, which earned RIM a reputation for security and reliability, to the cultural adoption of the iconic device as a must-have symbol, to the backlash against the addictive properties of the “CrackBerry,” and the various patent suits RIM has had to fight off – including the five-year court battle that resulted in the largest technology patent settlement in US history. As the incredible story of the BlackBerry unfolds, and as RIM battles global giants like Nokia and Apple in the emerging super-phone marketplace, users, fans, investors and competitors can look to BlackBerry Planet for the insight and context of where they’ve been, to try and predict where they’re going.
Blender Cycles: Lighting And Rendering Cookbook
by Bernardo IraciAn in-depth guide full of step-by-step recipes to explore the concepts behind the usage of Cycles. Packed with illustrations, and lots of tips and tricks; the easy-to-understand nature of the book will help the reader understand even the most complex concepts with ease.If you are a digital artist who already knows your way around Blender, and you want to learn about the new Cycles' rendering engine, this is the book for you. Even experts will be able to pick up new tips and tricks to make the most of the rendering capabilities of Cycles.
Blind Equalization and System Identification: Batch Processing Algorithms, Performance and Applications
by Chong-Yung Chi Chih-Chun Feng Chii-Horng Chen Ching-Yung ChenThe absence of training signals from many kinds of transmission necessitates the widespread use of blind equalization and system identification. There have been many algorithms developed for these purposes, working with one- or two-dimensional signals and with single-input single-output or multiple-input multiple-output, real or complex systems. It is now time for a unified treatment of this subject, pointing out the common characteristics of these algorithms as well as learning from their different perspectives. "Blind Equalization and System Identification" provides such a unified treatment presenting theory, performance analysis, simulation, implementation and applications. This is a textbook for graduate courses in discrete-time random processes, statistical signal processing, and blind equalization and system identification. It contains material which will also interest researchers and engineers working in digital communications, source separation, speech processing, and other, similar applications.
Blind Signal Processing: Theory and Practice
by Xizhi Shi"Blind Signal Processing: Theory and Practice" not only introduces related fundamental mathematics, but also reflects the numerous advances in the field, such as probability density estimation-based processing algorithms, underdetermined models, complex value methods, uncertainty of order in the separation of convolutive mixtures in frequency domains, and feature extraction using Independent Component Analysis (ICA). At the end of the book, results from a study conducted at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in the areas of speech signal processing, underwater signals, image feature extraction, data compression, and the like are discussed. This book will be of particular interest to advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, university instructors and research scientists in related disciplines. Xizhi Shi is a Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Blind Source Separation: Dependent Component Analysis (SpringerBriefs in Electrical and Computer Engineering)
by Yong Xiang Dezhong Peng Zuyuan YangThis book provides readers a complete and self-contained set of knowledge about dependent source separation, including the latest development in this field. The book gives an overview on blind source separation where three promising blind separation techniques that can tackle mutually correlated sources are presented. The book further focuses on the non-negativity based methods, the time-frequency analysis based methods, and the pre-coding based methods, respectively.
Blind Speech Separation (Signals and Communication Technology)
by Te-Won Lee Hiroshi Sawada Shoji MakinoThis is the world’s first edited book on independent component analysis (ICA)-based blind source separation (BSS) of convolutive mixtures of speech. This book brings together a small number of leading researchers to provide tutorial-like and in-depth treatment on major ICA-based BSS topics, with the objective of becoming the definitive source for current, comprehensive, authoritative, and yet accessible treatment.
Blindness and Brain Plasticity in Navigation and Object Perception
by John J. Rieser Daniel H. Ashmead Ford F. Ebner Anne L. CornResearch into the development of sensory structures in the brains of blind or visually-impaired individuals has opened a window into important ways in which the mind works. In these individuals, the part of the brain that is usually devoted to processing visual information is given over to increased processing of the touch and hearing sense. This d
Blindness and Brain Plasticity in Navigation and Object Perception
by John J. Rieser Daniel H. Ashmead Ford Ebner Anne L. CornResearch into the development of sensory structures in the brains of blind or visually-impaired individuals has opened a window into important ways in which the mind works. In these individuals, the part of the brain that is usually devoted to processing visual information is given over to increased processing of the touch and hearing sense. This d