AUK Studios are proud to present the first edition of our newsletter BREAKING, a quarterly preview of what exciting products we are working on, fantastic upcoming new releases, casting news and a great deal more. For our first newsletter we feature a range of our recent releases, including Screaming Queens, Venna’s Planet and The Virgin’s Embrace. You can also read about products due for release soon - such as Supermind starring Colin McFarlane (from the Batman films and more) and learn about people we’ve recently worked with such as Marvel’s Spiderman villain Doctor Octopus, aka Alfred Molina. With such a flurry of new content, we decided to create this newsletter to keep everyone updated with what’s happening in our corner of the creative media world. You can be sure to find out more about our team in coming issues; this is, of course, always the best place to find out about what’s on the horizon... so stay tuned to hear about all our AUK-based antics! Welcome to the first BREAKING newsletter.
The dust has settled after the violence and bloodshed of World War Three. But something sinister is stirring in the swollen cities and decimated countryside amongst the children sired by the genetically enhanced super soldiers who helped win the war for America and its allies. As companies wage secretive battles for domination and Khalist cells sow terror and discord, teenagers are developing fantastic and deadly abilities. Connor Hill’s normal life is shattered one morning after he becomes a bystander in an assassination plot. His ability to heal and control his body on a cellular level pits him against shadowy companies seeking to make a profit, their government cronies out to protect them, gangsters vying for power and living relics from the Greatest War. Connor must not only learn to control his strange and powerful abilities but find an identity in this grey, bloody world. Will he be the hero he wants to be, or the villain the world sees him as? Paladin Hill is a regularly released serial featuring heroes, villains, super soldiers, brutal fights and giant swords with a taste of cyberpunk and gallons of blood.
Nelson’s got a tough choice to make, if he wants to become a true superhero. Nelson and his best friend Simon have escaped the DCA prison and become members of the resistance, which is dedicated to bringing down the Superhero Bureau. But the resistance wants Nelson to do something that goes against everything he believes in. They want him to kill anyone that gets in the way of their mission… Now Nelson will be tested as never before by both the resistance and the Superhero Bureau. And he’s going to have decide what’s more important: The superhero code or his friendship with Simon. But when Nelson learns that the source of every superhero and villains’ powers is another living being that’s been wrongfully imprisoned, he’s got another tough choice to make. Nelson has to go back to the place that almost broke him. He has to go back to the DCA and discover the truth behind his powers and his identity as a superhero.
For over twenty years the abortion debate has raged, with each side entrenched in unyielding positions. This book breaks the impasse by using pro-life premises to reach pro-choice conclusions. While it is commonly assumed that state protection of the fetus as a form of human life undermines women's reproductive rights, McDonagh instead illuminates how it is exactly such state protection of the fetus that strengthens, rather than weakens, not only women's right to an abortion, but even more significantly, women's ability to call on the state for abortion funding. McDonagh's approach, by bridging the divide between pro-life and pro-choice advocates, revolutionizes the abortion debate in a way that opens up a whole new avenue for resolving the abortion conflict and advancing women's rights. McDonagh reframes the abortion debate by locating the missing piece of the puzzle: the fetus as the cause of pregnancy. After exposing the myths on this subject, her exacting analysis presents the scientific and legal evidence that the ultimate source of pregnancy is the fetus. The central issue then becomes what the fetus, as an active agent, does to a woman's body during pregnancy, whether that pregnancy is wanted or not. McDonagh graphically describes the massive changes produced by the fetus when it takes over a woman's body. As such, pregnancy is best depicted not as a condition that women have a right to choose but rather as a condition to which they must have a right to consent. Abortion, therefore, does not rest on the intensely debated principle, stated in Roe, that women have a right to be free from state interference when choosing privately what to do with their own bodies. Instead, as McDonagh's book explains, abortion rights flow inevitably from women's more established right to consent to what another agent does to their body. Specifically, women have a right to resist an unwanted intrusion by a fetus as well as to receive help from the state to stop such an intrusion. Moving abortion rights from choice to consent has broad legal and cultural ramifications tapping into the very cornerstone of the American political system: consent. McDonagh unravels the consequences of extending to pregnant women the same guarantees of bodily integrity and liberty possessed by others in our society. Specifically, she shows why a woman who does not consent to be made pregnant by a fetus, not only has a right to terminate pregnancy, but why the state violates constitutional due process and equal protection guarantees when it fails to provide her with the same protections against nonconsensual intrusions by a fetus as it provides against nonconsensual intrusions by other parties. This book pivotally strengthens, therefore, not only women's right to abortion but also abortion funding. By providing new grounds both for the public funding of abortion and for the removal of government restrictions on abortions, it lays the foundation for enhancing women's rights through major policy changes in legislatures and courts.
Over 250 pages of previously unreleased fiction and poetry. FEATURING:Introduction by Nicole Rogers,How to Tame a Werewolf with Baked Spaghetti by Jeffrey Buford, Dark Kiss by Gabrielle S. Faust,The Perfect Citizen by April Wolak,Blind by R.M. Hamilton,The Itch by Cassandra Lee,Ribbons by Nora Blansett,Surgical Puppet Theatre by D.W. Green,Exit Stage by Nora Blansett,Presence by Charlotte Emma Gledson,The Velvet Night ~ The Vampire by Jane Adams,Katrina's Charity Restaurant by Paul Hart-Wilden,Bloody Soap by Eric Enck,The Crimson Sleep by Nora Blansett,Mother of a Reaper by Jennifer L. Miller,The Hallway by J.D., and Closing Statement by Nicole Rogers. SPECIAL CONTENT: Includes Riding with the Harley Boys by John M. Bishop and Oblivion a novella by Jordan M. Bobé.
Machine learning (ML) has become a commonplace element in our everyday lives and a standard tool for many fields of science and engineering. To make optimal use of ML, it is essential to understand its underlying principles. This book approaches ML as the computational implementation of the scientific principle. This principle consists of continuously adapting a model of a given data-generating phenomenon by minimizing some form of loss incurred by its predictions. The book trains readers to break down various ML applications and methods in terms of data, model, and loss, thus helping them to choose from the vast range of ready-made ML methods. The book’s three-component approach to ML provides uniform coverage of a wide range of concepts and techniques. As a case in point, techniques for regularization, privacy-preservation as well as explainability amount to specific design choices for the model, data, and loss of a ML method.
In 2017, the new journal Internet Histories was founded. As part of the process of defining a new field, the journal editors approached leading scholars in this dynamic, interdisciplinary area. This book is thus a collection of eighteen short thought-provoking pieces, inviting discussion about Internet histories. They raise and suggest current and future issues in the scholarship, as well as exploring the challenges, opportunities, and tensions that underpin the research terrain. The book explores cultural, political, social, economic, and industrial dynamics, all part of a distinctive historiographical and theoretical approach which underpins this emerging field. The international specialists reflect upon the scholarly scene, laying out the field’s research successes to date, as well as suggest the future possibilities that lie ahead in the field of Internet histories. While the emphasis is on researcher perspectives, interviews with leading luminaries of the Internet’s development are also provided. As histories of the Internet become increasingly important, Internet Histories is a useful roadmap for those contemplating how we can write such works. One cannot write many histories of the 1990s or later without thinking of digital media – and we hope that Internet Histories will be an invaluable resource for such studies. This book was originally published as the first issue of the Internet Histories journal.
The Learning How to be a Hero series follows the adventures of Nelson as he learns what it takes to be a hero. Book 1: Learning How to Fly is now available! Nelson is a superhero with an embarrassing problem… He can't fly very well and he's been ordered to attend remedial flying school. If he doesn't pass the class he'll lost his superhero license and have to work at the weather bureau. But a class in remedial flying is just the beginning of his problems. His girlfriend thinks he's self-obsessed, and his mom won't get off his case about not living up to the family legacy. When Nelson is framed for a crime and sent to the Defining Center of Adjustments, the sinister warden Pretty Boy will challenge everything he thought he knew about being a hero. If Nelson can't get his act together and realize that what makes a superhero isn't the costume, but the actions the superhero takes, he might lose more than his career. He might lose his life and everyone important to him.
