Life on the farm becomes much more interesting for David when he discovers a penguin nest nearby. The subsequent presence of an interesting old Maori man doubles the attraction of this special place that David has discovered. It soon becomes clear to the reader that Old Tama is a ghost. David begins to suspect as much as he discovers more about the old man's tribal history. Learning why Old Tama's ghost has returned to these lands leads David to some important self-discoveries. Winner of the Esther Glen Award for Fiction.
Finalist for the 2016 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in the Sports category Have you ever considered running 350 miles in nine days? Kenneth A. Posner did just that when he completed a record-setting run along New York's Long Path, a 350-mile hiking trail that stretches from New York City to Albany. Running the Long Path's page-turning narrative combines the thrill and challenges of Posner's extreme endurance feat with the stunning natural beauty and deep historical significance of New York's Hudson Valley. A one-time casual runner, Posner shares his excitement of developing into a trail-runner and eventually an ultrarunner, as well as the pursuit of a "fastest known time"—a new dimension of extreme trail running, where some of the sport's fastest and most experienced athletes vie to set new speed records for important trails. Hikers, walkers, and runners will appreciate his detailed descriptions of planning, pacing, gear selection, nutrition, hydration, and navigation, which will help them prepare for their own adventures on the trails. Interspersed with the running adventure, Posner relates the interesting stories of the Long Path and the places it passes through, which include some of New York's most important parks and preserves and the distinctive mountains and forests they protect. Throughout the book, he channels the voices of famous New Yorkers associated with the Long Path—Walt Whitman, John Burroughs, Theodore Roosevelt, and Raymond Torrey—who express their appreciation of the natural beauty of the region. Running the Long Path is the story of what ordinary people can accomplish with a little determination and a lot of grit. Whether you walk or run, you will find inspiration in Posner's tale.
Perfect for a new generation of path-forgers, this buoyant picture book from an award-winning author and New Yorker cover artist is a hip new take on the graduation book. With an exclusive bonus print from Bob Staake inside the jacket. On this playfully illustrated journey with Bob Staake, children and adults alike will discover an encouraging truth: our path through life is not only challenging and beautiful—it is all our own to discover and invent. "You will walk. You will walk along a well-worn path that many people have taken—and long before you." So begins this inspirational journey over gentle, grassy hills, through fields of wildflowers, over raging rivers, up steep mountains, and even through a dark, chilly cave. When it splits in two, you will have to decide what to do next—and you'll create a path that's unique to you.
God only knows what possessed Bill Bryson, a reluctant adventurer if ever there was one, to undertake a gruelling hike along the world's longest continuous footpath—The Appalachian Trail. The 2,000-plus-mile trail winds through 14 states, stretching along the east coast of the United States, from Georgia to Maine. It snakes through some of the wildest and most spectacular landscapes in North America, as well as through some of its most poverty-stricken and primitive backwoods areas. With his offbeat sensibility, his eye for the absurd, and his laugh-out-loud sense of humour, Bryson recounts his confrontations with nature at its most uncompromising over his five-month journey. An instant classic, riotously funny, A Walk in the Woods will add a whole new audience to the legions of Bill Bryson fans.
"In 2009, while thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, Robert Moor began to wonder about the paths that lie beneath our feet: How do they form? Why do some improve over time while others fade? What makes us follow or strike off on our own? Over the course of the next seven years, Moor traveled the globe, exploring trails of all kinds, from the miniscule to the massive. He learned the tricks of master trail-builders, hunted down long-lost Cherokee trails, and traced the origins of our road networks and the Internet. In each chapter, Moor interweaves his adventures with findings from science, history, philosophy, and nature writing--combining the nomadic joys of Peter Matthiessen with the eclectic wisdom of Lewis Hyde's The Gift. Throughout, Moor reveals how this single topic--the oft-overlooked trail--sheds new light on a wealth of age-old questions: How does order emerge out of chaos? How did animals first crawl forth from the seas and spread across continents? How has humanity's relationship with nature and technology shaped the world around us? And, ultimately, how does each of us pick a path through life? With a breathtaking arc that spans from the dawn of animal life to the digital era, On Trails is a book that makes us see our world, our history, our species, and our ways of life anew"--Book jacket flap.
Description:This book is going to be the first well organized book for soft computing, including all the three major constituents or aspect of soft computing (neural networks, fuzzy logic and evolutionary computation), and hopefully will be proved beneficial for both kind of people; those striving to gain knowledge and those striving to score grades. The book is comprised of each and every topic of soft computing is a vast field of artificial intelligence with very much exploration to real time problems, especially regarding the quench of decision making and automation in the leading AI industries.Key Features:Comprehensive coverage of various aspects of soft computing concepts.Artificial intelligence, Neuro computing, Fuzzy logic Evolutionary computation.Strictly in accordance for the syllabus coverd under UG, PG, and Doctoral courses. (B.E. / B. Tech./ MCA/ M. Tech/ Research Scholars)Simple language, crystal clear approach, straight forward comprehensible presentation.The concepts are duly supported by several examples.Important question papers for every chapters.Table of contents:Chapter 1: Introduction to Neuro-computingChapter 2: Training the Neural networksChapter 3: The unsupervised networksChapter 4: The fuzzy logicChapter 5: The Evolutionary computationChapter 6: Few Auxiliary algorithms
This book describes the experimental and theoretical bases for the development of specifically quantum-mechanical approaches to metrology, imaging, and communication. In particular, it presents novel techniques developed over the last two decades and explicates them both theoretically and by reference to experiments which demonstrate their principles in practice. The particular techniques explored include two-photon interferometry, two-photon optical aberration and dispersion cancellation, lithography, microscopy, and cryptography.
