When Tamsin Brown, an Australian model working as a hostess, is brutally murdered, London solicitor Alicia Allen becomes embroiled in the hunt for her killer. Alicia's investigations, however, have life-threatening consequences for those drawn into the evil web created by Tamsin's murderer, who believes there is such a thing as a model murder -
Today, machine learning is being applied to a growing variety of problems in a bewildering variety of domains. A fundamental challenge when using machine learning is connecting the abstract mathematics of a machine learning technique to a concrete, real world problem. This book tackles this challenge through model-based machine learning which focuses on understanding the assumptions encoded in a machine learning system and their corresponding impact on the behaviour of the system. The key ideas of model-based machine learning are introduced through a series of case studies involving real-world applications. Case studies play a central role because it is only in the context of applications that it makes sense to discuss modelling assumptions. Each chapter introduces one case study and works through step-by-step to solve it using a model-based approach. The aim is not just to explain machine learning methods, but also showcase how to create, debug, and evolve them to solve a problem. Features: Explores the assumptions being made by machine learning systems and the effect these assumptions have when the system is applied to concrete problems. Explains machine learning concepts as they arise in real-world case studies. Shows how to diagnose, understand and address problems with machine learning systems. Full source code available, allowing models and results to be reproduced and explored. Includes optional deep-dive sections with more mathematical details on inference algorithms for the interested reader.
May 20, 1969: Four members of the revolutionary Black Panther Party trudge through woods along the edges of the Coginchaug River outside of New Haven, Connecticut. Gunshots shatter the silence. Three men emerge from the woods. Soon, two are in police custody. One flees across the country. Nine Panthers would be tried for crimes committed that night, including National Chairman Bobby Seale, extradited from California with the aide of Panther nemesis, California Governor Ronald Reagan. Activists of all denominations descended on the New England city -- and the campus of Yale. The Nixon administration sent 4,000 National Guardsmen. U.S. military tanks lined the streets outside of New Haven. In this white-knuckle journey through a turbulent America, Doug Rae and Paul Bass let us eavesdrop on late-night meetings between Yale President, Kingman Brewster, and radical activists, including Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, as they try to avert disaster. Meanwhile, most heartrending of all is the never-before-told story of Warren Kimbro -- star community worker turned Panther assassin -- who faces an uphill battle to turn his life around.
A riveting account of a gruesome triple-homicide at Beekman Place in Depression Era New York, with an intriguing cast of characters including the brilliant but mentally-disturbed sculptor, Robert Irwin.
The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death offers readers an extraordinary glimpse into the mind of a master criminal investigator. Frances Glessner Lee, a wealthy grandmother, founded the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard in 1936 and was later appointed captain in the New Hampshire police. In the 1940s and 1950s she built dollhouse crime scenes based on real cases in order to train detectives to assess visual evidence. Still used in forensic training today, the eighteen Nutshell dioramas, on a scale of 1:12, display an astounding level of detail: pencils write, window shades move, whistles blow, and clues to the crimes are revealed to those who study the scenes carefully. Corinne May Botz's lush color photographs lure viewers into every crevice of Frances Lee's models and breathe life into these deadly miniatures, which present the dark side of domestic life, unveiling tales of prostitution, alcoholism, and adultery. The accompanying line drawings, specially prepared for this volume, highlight the noteworthy forensic evidence in each case. Botz's introductory essay, which draws on archival research and interviews with Lee's family and police colleagues, presents a captivating portrait of Lee.
A powerful, bracing and deeply spiritual look at intensely, troubled youth, Last Chance in Texas gives a stirring account of the way one remarkable prison rehabilitates its inmates. While reporting on the juvenile court system, journalist John Hubner kept hearing about a facility in Texas that ran the most aggressive–and one of the most successful–treatment programs for violent young offenders in America. How was it possible, he wondered, that a state like Texas, famed for its hardcore attitude toward crime and punishment, could be leading the way in the rehabilitation of violent and troubled youth? Now Hubner shares the surprising answers he found over months of unprecedented access to the Giddings State School, home to “the worst of the worst”: four hundred teenage lawbreakers convicted of crimes ranging from aggravated assault to murder. Hubner follows two of these youths–a boy and a girl–through harrowing group therapy sessions in which they, along with their fellow inmates, recount their crimes and the abuse they suffered as children. The key moment comes when the young offenders reenact these soul-shattering moments with other group members in cathartic outpourings of suffering and anger that lead, incredibly, to genuine remorse and the beginnings of true empathy . . . the first steps on the long road to redemption. Cutting through the political platitudes surrounding the controversial issue of juvenile justice, Hubner lays bare the complex ties between abuse and violence. By turns wrenching and uplifting, Last Chance in Texas tells a profoundly moving story about the children who grow up to inflict on others the violence that they themselves have suffered. It is a story of horror and heartbreak, yet ultimately full of hope.
The 4th century BC Greek painter Parrhasius murdered his model--an old man who was his slave--to achieve, so the story goes, a more lifelike depiction of nature. The tale has inspired similar, more elaborate stories about both well known and obscure artists--including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Rubens. Elements of the tale have appeared in theater, literature and film, as well as in comments by painters, historians, critics and anatomists. Challenging the archetype of the artist as a sympathetic lover of nature, this book examines the artist as cruel and murderous in service of art and ambition, and indirectly addresses a different understanding of the relationship between art and life.
THE MUST-READ MULTIMILLION BESTSELLING MYSTERY SERIES—COMING SOON TO NETFLIX! • This is the story about an investigation turned obsession, full of twists and turns and with an ending you'll never expect. Everyone in Fairview knows the story. Pretty and popular high school senior Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who then killed himself. It was all anyone could talk about. And five years later, Pip sees how the tragedy still haunts her town. But she can't shake the feeling that there was more to what happened that day. She knew Sal when she was a child, and he was always so kind to her. How could he possibly have been a killer? Now a senior herself, Pip decides to reexamine the closed case for her final project, at first just to cast doubt on the original investigation. But soon she discovers a trail of dark secrets that might actually prove Sal innocent . . . and the line between past and present begins to blur. Someone in Fairview doesn't want Pip digging around for answers, and now her own life might be in danger. And don't miss the sequel, Good Girl, Bad Blood! "The perfect nail-biting mystery." —Natasha Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author
Photographer Charles Edgar Rathburn was trying to crack the big time, and so was Linda Sobek, a former Los Angeles Raiders cheerleader turned model. An assignment for "Autoweek" took them to an isolated location called El Mirage dry lake. When it was over, Linda would be dead. In his unsettling account, Nerad details the story of an exquisite woman and her collision course with the man who killed her.
***Please note: This ebook edition does not contain the photos found in the print edition.*** A stunning actress-model disappears without a word...A frantic search ends in tragedy...A slick photographer accused of her murder... It seemed as if all of Linda Sobek's dreams of stardom were coming true. But on the day the sexy calendar model and former NFL cheerleader missed a fitting for her first TV role, her family knew something terrible had happened to their golden girl. For eight days, police held out little hope of finding the 27-year-old beauty alive. Then the crucial clues came: photographs of Linda along with a crumpled page from her appointment book were discovered in a highway dumpster. Hours later, they were led to Linda's shallow grave deep in California's Angeles Forest. The clues near the crime scene linked the murder to Charles Rathbun, a talented, sought-after commercial photographer, who claimed he'd accidentally run Linda over in a car during a photo shoot. Police speculated that Linda may not have been the first pretty woman the strapping Rathbun had taken into Angeles Forest who didn't come out alive. But he has not been charged in any of those cases. Clifford L. Linedecker's Death of a Model tells the heartbreaking story of a promising young star.