Cacy and Kiara are sixth grade cousins who couldn't be more different from each other. When their two schools take the same field trip to Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, Cacy and Kiara are thrown into an adventure filled with mystery and murder. In order to save the park and themselves from certain destruction, they call upon their family 'aum kua (personal gods), receive guidance from the Goddesses Hi'iaka and Pele, and befriend the inhabitants of a secret Menehune village. Throughout their adventure, they learn the power of their connection to ancient Hawai'i and the importance of working together. Author and illustrator Roy Chang has created a world where the myths and legends of Hawai'i come alive in one of the most powerful places in the state Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. Over sixty manga-style illustrations accompany the story adding another layer of action to an already action-packed tale. Join Cacy and Kiara on an adventure of a lifetime as they race against time to reverse the curse of the ki'i* and save Hawai'i Island from certain doom! * statue, idol
This book presents the proceedings of the IUPESM World Congress on Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics, a tri-annual high-level policy meeting dedicated exclusively to furthering the role of biomedical engineering and medical physics in medicine. The book offers papers about emerging issues related to the development and sustainability of the role and impact of medical physicists and biomedical engineers in medicine and healthcare. It provides a unique and important forum to secure a coordinated, multileveled global response to the need, demand, and importance of creating and supporting strong academic and clinical teams of biomedical engineers and medical physicists for the benefit of human health.
"Much of pattern recognition theory and practice, including methods such as Support Vector Machines, has emerged in an attempt to solve the character recognition problem. This book is written by very well-known academics who have worked in the field for many years and have made significant and lasting contributions. The book will no doubt be of value to students and practitioners." -Sargur N. Srihari, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and Director, Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition (CEDAR), University at Buffalo, The State University of New York "The disciplines of optical character recognition and document image analysis have a history of more than forty years. In the last decade, the importance and popularity of these areas have grown enormously. Surprisingly, however, the field is not well covered by any textbook. This book has been written by prominent leaders in the field. It includes all important topics in optical character recognition and document analysis, and is written in a very coherent and comprehensive style. This book satisfies an urgent need. It is a volume the community has been awaiting for a long time, and I can enthusiastically recommend it to everybody working in the area." -Horst Bunke, Professor, Institute of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics (IAM), University of Bern, Switzerland In Character Recognition Systems, the authors provide practitioners and students with the fundamental principles and state-of-the-art computational methods of reading printed texts and handwritten materials. The information presented is analogous to the stages of a computer recognition system, helping readers master the theory and latest methodologies used in character recognition in a meaningful way. This book covers: * Perspectives on the history, applications, and evolution of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) * The most widely used pre-processing techniques, as well as methods for extracting character contours and skeletons * Evaluating extracted features, both structural and statistical * Modern classification methods that are successful in character recognition, including statistical methods, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Support Vector Machines (SVM), structural methods, and multi-classifier methods * An overview of word and string recognition methods and techniques * Case studies that illustrate practical applications, with descriptions of the methods and theories behind the experimental results Each chapter contains major steps and tricks to handle the tasks described at-hand. Researchers and graduate students in computer science and engineering will find this book useful for designing a concrete system in OCR technology, while practitioners will rely on it as a valuable resource for the latest advances and modern technologies that aren't covered elsewhere in a single book.
In the last three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, there has been a vast amount of study looking at transforming the planned economy to a market economy from both theoretical and empirical aspects. This book provides an overview and insight into transition economies in the recent decades and looks at key economics topics from the so-called “transition strategy debate” to environmental reform. The book also includes an analytical review and meta-analysis of the existing literature. By integrating theoretical discussions and synthesizing empirical findings in a systematic manner, this book may help to enlighten the debate on the timing, speed, and policy sequence of economic transition. The book will particularly appeal to researchers, policy makers, other practitioners, and under- and post-graduate students who are interested in transition economies in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Southeast Asia, and China. It aims to be read as an advanced reader.
Collection of essays which present portraits of individuals ranging from Rosa Luxemburg to Pope John XXIII who the author believes have illuminated "dark times."
A NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, and WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER! A 2021 Alex Award winner! The 2021 RUSA Reading List: Fantasy Winner! An Indie Next Pick! One of Publishers Weekly's "Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2020" One of Book Riot’s “20 Must-Read Feel-Good Fantasies” Lambda Literary Award-winning author TJ Klune’s bestselling, breakout contemporary fantasy that's "1984 meets The Umbrella Academy with a pinch of Douglas Adams thrown in." (Gail Carriger) Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He's tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world. Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light. The House in the Cerulean Sea is an enchanting love story, masterfully told, about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours. "1984 meets The Umbrella Academy with a pinch of Douglas Adams thrown in." —Gail Carriger, New York Times bestselling author of Soulless At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Encoded in the very words you speak are messages that you can use to gain a new vitality. And amazingly, "the Word" itself can take you to the roots of the world's oldest mystery. What "evil" did humanity eat in the garden that led to our initial downfall? The answer brings us out of Armageddon and into Aquarius.