Growing up in the shadows of the giant B-52 Stratofortresses that thundered away from the nearby Barksdale Air Force Base, Brandon Friedman dreamed of becoming a warrior and defending his country. But dreams of heroism and the realities of war can look very different, and when Brandon joined the army as a second lieutenant in peacetime, he had no way of knowing how his world was about to change. This is Brandon Friedmans story of coming of age in a world awakening to the horrors made plain on 9/11. With the U. S. Army moving into full-fledged combat operations half a world away against Al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts, Brandon found himself facing an elusive enemy on unfamiliar ground. He tells how, as an infantry platoon leader in the elite 101st Airborne Division, the famed "Screaming Eagles," he and his unit struggled to find their footing in the high valleys of the Hindu Kush while battling radical Islam in operation Anaconda. A brief respite at their home base in Kentucky, and Friedman and the Screaming Eagles were off to war again, this time in Iraq. In this gripping memoir of a young soldier learning the hardest lessons of combat, we see the terrors and disillusion of war as the insurgency in Iraq spirals out of control. And we see the true valor of character emerging under fire.
This book examines how the rulers in the Persian Gulf responded to the British announcement of military withdrawal from the Gulf in 1968, ending 150 years of military supremacy in the region. The British system in the Gulf was accepted for more than a century not merely because the British were the dominant military power in the region. The balance of power mattered, but so did the framework within which the British exercised their power. The search for a new political framework, which began when the British announced withdrawal, was not simply a matter of which ruler would amass enough military power to fill the void left by the British: it was also a matter of the Gulf rulers – chiefly Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the ruling shaykhs of the lower Gulf – coming to a shared understanding of when and how the exercise of power would be viewed as legitimate. This book explores what shaped the rulers’ ideas and actions in the region as the British system came to an end, providing a much-needed political history of the region in the lead-up to the independence of the UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar in 1971.
Cyber conflict is real, but is not changing the dynamics of international politics. In this study, the authors provide a realistic evaluation of the tactic in modern international interactions using a detailed examination of several famous cyber incidents and disputes in the last decade.
The global financial crisis has drawn attention to the importance of understanding historical ideas and learning lessons from the past. However, it can sometimes be difficult to trace the connections between old ideas and modern day issues. This textbook traces the evolution of economic ideas from the ancient to the modern world by examining the contributions of the most important scholars to some of the most important ideas in economics. The History of Economic Ideas surveys topics that are important for the understanding of contemporary economic issues, including the ethical foundations of modern economics; ideas regarding property rights; price theory; money and interest; public finance; the theories of business cycles and economic growth; international trade; and issues related to population and resource use. The book’s originality lies in its overall organization, which allows readers to explore the development of ideas on a specific topic in detail. Yet it is brief enough to use alongside the original writings on which it is based. Filled with student-friendly features including a series of "Did You Know" facts and end-of-chapter questions, this book is engaging and provides invaluable reading for all students of the history of economic thought and economic issues.
Hands-on Machine Learning with R provides a practical and applied approach to learning and developing intuition into today’s most popular machine learning methods. This book serves as a practitioner’s guide to the machine learning process and is meant to help the reader learn to apply the machine learning stack within R, which includes using various R packages such as glmnet, h2o, ranger, xgboost, keras, and others to effectively model and gain insight from their data. The book favors a hands-on approach, providing an intuitive understanding of machine learning concepts through concrete examples and just a little bit of theory. Throughout this book, the reader will be exposed to the entire machine learning process including feature engineering, resampling, hyperparameter tuning, model evaluation, and interpretation. The reader will be exposed to powerful algorithms such as regularized regression, random forests, gradient boosting machines, deep learning, generalized low rank models, and more! By favoring a hands-on approach and using real word data, the reader will gain an intuitive understanding of the architectures and engines that drive these algorithms and packages, understand when and how to tune the various hyperparameters, and be able to interpret model results. By the end of this book, the reader should have a firm grasp of R’s machine learning stack and be able to implement a systematic approach for producing high quality modeling results. Features: · Offers a practical and applied introduction to the most popular machine learning methods. · Topics covered include feature engineering, resampling, deep learning and more. · Uses a hands-on approach and real world data.
Tree-based Methods for Statistical Learning in R provides a thorough introduction to both individual decision tree algorithms (Part I) and ensembles thereof (Part II). Part I of the book brings several different tree algorithms into focus, both conventional and contemporary. Building a strong foundation for how individual decision trees work will help readers better understand tree-based ensembles at a deeper level, which lie at the cutting edge of modern statistical and machine learning methodology. The book follows up most ideas and mathematical concepts with code-based examples in the R statistical language; with an emphasis on using as few external packages as possible. For example, users will be exposed to writing their own random forest and gradient tree boosting functions using simple for loops and basic tree fitting software (like rpart and party/partykit), and more. The core chapters also end with a detailed section on relevant software in both R and other opensource alternatives (e.g., Python, Spark, and Julia), and example usage on real data sets. While the book mostly uses R, it is meant to be equally accessible and useful to non-R programmers. Consumers of this book will have gained a solid foundation (and appreciation) for tree-based methods and how they can be used to solve practical problems and challenges data scientists often face in applied work. Features: Thorough coverage, from the ground up, of tree-based methods (e.g., CART, conditional inference trees, bagging, boosting, and random forests). A companion website containing additional supplementary material and the code to reproduce every example and figure in the book. A companion R package, called treemisc, which contains several data sets and functions used throughout the book (e.g., there’s an implementation of gradient tree boosting with LAD loss that shows how to perform the line search step by updating the terminal node estimates of a fitted rpart tree). Interesting examples that are of practical use; for example, how to construct partial dependence plots from a fitted model in Spark MLlib (using only Spark operations), or post-processing tree ensembles via the LASSO to reduce the number of trees while maintaining, or even improving performance.
With its lush gardens, stately town houses, and sprawling plantations, Savannah is the epitome of old Southern style, and who better to give you the grand tour than Paula Deen, the city’s most famous resident and anointed Queen of Southern Cuisine? In this gorgeous, richly illustrated book, Paula Deen shares a full year of Southern living. Whether it’s time to put out your best china and make a real fuss, or you’re just gathering for some sweet tea on the porch at dusk, Savannah style is about making folks feel welcome in your home. With the help of decorator and stylist Brandon Branch, you’ll learn how to bring a bit of Southern charm into homes from Minnesota to Mississippi. For each season, there are tips on decorating and entertaining. In the spring, you’ll learn how to make the most of your outdoor spaces, spruce up your porch, and make your garden inviting. In the summer, things get more casual with a dock party. Sleeping spaces, including, of course, the sleeping porch, are the focal point of this chapter. In the fall, cooler weather brings a return to more formal entertaining in the dining room, and in the winter, attention returns to the hearth, as Paula and her neighbors put out their best silver and show you how they celebrate the holidays. Paula loves getting a peek at her neighbors’ parlors, so she’s included photographs of some of Savannah’s grandest homes. From the vast grounds of Lebanon Plantation to the whimsically restored cottages on Tybee Island, you’ll see the unique blend of old-world elegance and laid-back hospitality that charmed Paula the moment she arrived from Albany, Georgia, with nothing but two hundred dollars and a pair of mouths to feed. And she isn’t shy about giving you a window into her own world, either. From her farmhouse kitchen to her luxurious powder room, you’ll see how Paula lives when she’s not in front of the camera. Packed with advice and nostalgia, Paula Deen’s Savannah Style makes it easy to bring gracious Southern living to homes north and south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
The salvation life-eternal life-is a life of discipleship, a life actively and fully given over to the lordship and leadership of Christ. This manifesto by the founders of the Bonhoeffer Project fully and finally dispenses with the myth of cheap grace and invites us into the life that is truly life-life as a student and follower of the living God.
Background Noise follows the development of sound as an artistic medium and illustrates how sound is put to use within modes of composition, installation, and performance. While chronological in its structure, Brandon LaBelle's book is informed by spatial thinking - weaving architecture, environments, and the specifics of location into the work of sound, with the aim of formulating an expansive history and understanding of sound art. At its center the book presupposes an intrinsic relation between sound and its location, galvanizing acoustics, sound phenomena, and the environmental with the tensions inherent in what LaBelle identifies as sound's relational dynamic. For the author, this is embedded within sound's tendency to become public expressed in its ability to travel distances, foster cultural expression, and define spaces while being radically flexible. This second expanded edition includes a new chapter on the non-human and subnatural tendencies in sound art, revisions to the text as well as a new preface by the author. Intersecting material analysis with theoretical frameworks spanning art and architectural theory, performance studies and media theory, Background Noise makes the case that sound and sound art are central to understandings of contemporary culture.
Sweeping survey of 150 years of colonial history (1607-1763) offers authoritative views on agrarian society and leadership, non-English influences, religion, education, literature, music, architecture, and much more. 33 black-and-white illustrations.
In two canonical decisions of the 1920s—Meyer v. Nebraska and Pierce v. Society of Sisters—the Supreme Court announced that family (including certain relations within it) was an institution falling under the Constitution’s protective umbrella. Since then, proponents of “family values” have claimed that a timeless form of family—nuclear and biological—is crucial to the constitutional order. Mark Brandon’s new book, however, challenges these claims. Brandon addresses debates currently roiling America—the regulation of procreation, the roles of women, the education of children, divorce, sexuality, and the meanings of marriage. He also takes on claims of scholars who attribute modern change in family law to mid-twentieth-century Supreme Court decisions upholding privacy. He shows that the “constitutional” law of family has much deeper roots. Offering glimpses into American households across time, Brandon looks at the legal and constitutional norms that have aimed to govern those households and the lives within them. He argues that, well prior to the 1960s, the nature of families in America had been continually changing—especially during western expansion, but also in the founding era. He further contends that the monogamous nuclear family was codified only at the end of the nineteenth century as a response to Mormon polygamy, communal experiments, and Native American households. Brandon discusses the evolution of familial jurisprudence as applied to disputes over property, inheritance, work, reproduction, the status of women and children, the regulation of sex, and the legal limits to and constitutional significance of marriage. He shows how the Supreme Court’s famous decisions in the latter part of the twentieth century were largely responses to societal change, and he cites a wide range of cases that offer fresh insight into the ways the legal system responded to various forms of family life. More than a historical overview, the book also considers the development of same-sex marriage as a political and legal issue in our time. States of Union is a groundbreaking volume that explains how family came to be “in” the Constitution, what it has meant for family to be constitutionally significant, and what the implications of that significance are for the constitutional order and for families.
This book presents an overview of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), with in-depth coverage of key areas such as recent Shiga toxin-related poisonings in Europe and the US, the structure, production, and mechanism of action of Shiga toxin, and current methods of detection. The globalization of food production has introduced new risk factors and intensified existing hazards, complicating the assurance of food safety. Foodborne illness outbreaks, such as those related to STEC, are becoming more common and more dangerous. The threat that these bacterial toxins pose to the food supply is magnified by the frequent occurrence and severity of Shiga toxin-caused disease. As a result, STEC and their toxins remain a primary concern in food safety. This review serves as a key resource for scientists in the field and public health and regulatory officials charged with maintaining food safety. This book also looks to the future of treatment of Shiga toxin-associated disease, specifically the translation of lab bench science into clinical therapeutic strategies.
Mercenaries and Missionaries examines the relationship between rapidly diffusing forms of capitalism and Christianity in the Global South. Using more than two hundred interviews in Bangalore and Dubai, Brandon Vaidyanathan explains how and why global corporate professionals straddle conflicting moral orientations in the realms of work and religion. Seeking to place the spotlight on the role of religion in debates about the cultural consequences of capitalism, Vaidyanathan finds that an "apprehensive individualism" generated in global corporate workplaces is supported and sustained by a "therapeutic individualism" cultivated in evangelical-charismatic Catholicism. Mercenaries and Missionaries uncovers a symbiotic relationship between these individualisms and shows how this relationship unfolds in two global cities—Dubai, in non-democratic UAE, which holds what is considered the world's largest Catholic parish, and Bangalore, in democratic India, where the Catholic Church, though afflicted by ethnic and religious violence, runs many of the city's elite educational institutions. Vaidyanathan concludes that global corporations and religious communities create distinctive cultures, with normative models that powerfully orient people to those cultures—the Mercenary in cutthroat workplaces, and the Missionary in churches. As a result, global corporate professionals in rapidly developing cities negotiate starkly opposing moral commitments in the realms of work and religion, which in turn shapes their civic commitment to these cities.
An Introduction to Wavelets and Other Filtering Methods in Finance and Economics presents a unified view of filtering techniques with a special focus on wavelet analysis in finance and economics. It emphasizes the methods and explanations of the theory that underlies them. It also concentrates on exactly what wavelet analysis (and filtering methods in general) can reveal about a time series. It offers testing issues which can be performed with wavelets in conjunction with the multi-resolution analysis. The descriptive focus of the book avoids proofs and provides easy access to a wide spectrum of parametric and nonparametric filtering methods. Examples and empirical applications will show readers the capabilities, advantages, and disadvantages of each method. The first book to present a unified view of filtering techniques Concentrates on exactly what wavelets analysis and filtering methods in general can reveal about a time series Provides easy access to a wide spectrum of parametric and non-parametric filtering methods
In this book, we identify key areas for Mississippi economic policy reform. Twenty-one scholars, ten of which are from or work in Mississippi, have contributed original policy research. All twenty chapters were written specifically for Mississippi with a shared goal to promote prosperity in the state. While some of the chapters contain complex policy reforms, we have made every effort to present the concepts and ideas in a way that is understandable to the average citizen, the person who can benefit the most from this information. The first three chapters of the text summarize the basic economic principles necessary to achieve economic prosperity. These three chapters present the principles behind the reforms proposed in the subsequent seventeen chapters. Each chapter was written independently and offers unique insight into different areas of state policy reform. While the topics covered range from tax reform, education reform, healthcare, corporate welfare, occupational licensing and business regulatory reform to criminal justice reform, and natural disaster recovery efforts, there is a clear unifying framework underlying the conclusions reached in each chapter. The theme throughout is that economic growth is best achieved through free market policies, policies which are based on limited government, lower regulations, lower taxes, minimal infringement on contracting and labor markets, secure private property rights, low subsidies, and privatization. Policy based on these principles allows Mississippians to have more rights and more choices in their lives.
In One Vision, Many Voices, Gail Noppe-Brandon shares the results of a twenty-year experiment in generating dialogueboth on paper and between people. She outlines her life-changing Find Your Voice coaching method and provides an eclectic compilation of plays, scenes, and monologues from fifty powerful and moving works of dramatic literature written in response to evocative photographs. Noppe-Brandon builds on her unique approach to communication training while instilling an appreciation for the written, spoken, and literary tradition of the theatre. She shares the creative works of both new and experienced multicultural writersranging in age from twelve to eightywho connected to the power of their own unique voices in memorably moving plays that explore a multitude of relatable issues, including coming of age, body image, aging, and addiction. In this rare collection, actors of every age and background will find worthy audition material, and writers, creative clinicians, and teachers of all subjects will see what is possible when they ask the write questions. One Vision, Many Voices, with a Foreward by acclaimed Narrative Therapist, Robert Neimeyer, PhD, builds a crucial bridge between the worlds of theatre making and meaning making.
American courts routinely hand down harsh sentences to individual convicts, but a very different standard of justice applies to corporations. Too Big to Jail takes readers into a complex, compromised world of backroom deals, for an unprecedented look at what happens when criminal charges are brought against a major company in the United States. Federal prosecutors benefit from expansive statutes that allow an entire firm to be held liable for a crime by a single employee. But when prosecutors target the Goliaths of the corporate world, they find themselves at a huge disadvantage. The government that bailed out corporations considered too economically important to fail also negotiates settlements permitting giant firms to avoid the consequences of criminal convictions. Presenting detailed data from more than a decade of federal cases, Brandon Garrett reveals a pattern of negotiation and settlement in which prosecutors demand admissions of wrongdoing, impose penalties, and require structural reforms. However, those reforms are usually vaguely defined. Many companies pay no criminal fine, and even the biggest blockbuster payments are often greatly reduced. While companies must cooperate in the investigations, high-level employees tend to get off scot-free. The practical reality is that when prosecutors face Hydra-headed corporate defendants prepared to spend hundreds of millions on lawyers, such agreements may be the only way to get any result at all. Too Big to Jail describes concrete ways to improve corporate law enforcement by insisting on more stringent prosecution agreements, ongoing judicial review, and greater transparency.
This book looks at network security in a new and refreshing way. It guides readers step-by-step through the "stack" -- the seven layers of a network. Each chapter focuses on one layer of the stack along with the attacks, vulnerabilities, and exploits that can be found at that layer. The book even includes a chapter on the mythical eighth layer: The people layer. This book is designed to offer readers a deeper understanding of many common vulnerabilities and the ways in which attacker’s exploit, manipulate, misuse, and abuse protocols and applications. The authors guide the readers through this process by using tools such as Ethereal (sniffer) and Snort (IDS). The sniffer is used to help readers understand how the protocols should work and what the various attacks are doing to break them. IDS is used to demonstrate the format of specific signatures and provide the reader with the skills needed to recognize and detect attacks when they occur. What makes this book unique is that it presents the material in a layer by layer approach which offers the readers a way to learn about exploits in a manner similar to which they most likely originally learned networking. This methodology makes this book a useful tool to not only security professionals but also for networking professionals, application programmers, and others. All of the primary protocols such as IP, ICMP, TCP are discussed but each from a security perspective. The authors convey the mindset of the attacker by examining how seemingly small flaws are often the catalyst of potential threats. The book considers the general kinds of things that may be monitored that would have alerted users of an attack. * Remember being a child and wanting to take something apart, like a phone, to see how it worked? This book is for you then as it details how specific hacker tools and techniques accomplish the things they do. * This book will not only give you knowledge of security tools but will provide you the ability to design more robust security solutions * Anyone can tell you what a tool does but this book shows you how the tool works
America in Perspective argues, without hesitation, that America’s best days are ahead if only we can continue to embrace the ideas and values that got us here in the first place. When faced with challenges and conflict, our system of government allows us to self-correct and self-heal, and world history shows that this approach is uniquely American. Today, essential American values are being discredited, such as the American Dream and our meritocratic spirit. America in Perspective reviews American history, warts and all, and presents a path forward for modern America to secure a free and prosperous future for the next generation of Americans.
A guide for using computational text analysis to learn about the social world From social media posts and text messages to digital government documents and archives, researchers are bombarded with a deluge of text reflecting the social world. This textual data gives unprecedented insights into fundamental questions in the social sciences, humanities, and industry. Meanwhile new machine learning tools are rapidly transforming the way science and business are conducted. Text as Data shows how to combine new sources of data, machine learning tools, and social science research design to develop and evaluate new insights. Text as Data is organized around the core tasks in research projects using text—representation, discovery, measurement, prediction, and causal inference. The authors offer a sequential, iterative, and inductive approach to research design. Each research task is presented complete with real-world applications, example methods, and a distinct style of task-focused research. Bridging many divides—computer science and social science, the qualitative and the quantitative, and industry and academia—Text as Data is an ideal resource for anyone wanting to analyze large collections of text in an era when data is abundant and computation is cheap, but the enduring challenges of social science remain. Overview of how to use text as data Research design for a world of data deluge Examples from across the social sciences and industry
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.