Damien Watkins's Books

Programming in the .NET Environment

By: Damien Watkins,Mark J. Hammond,Brad Abrams

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Programming in the .NET Environment

By: Damien Watkins,Mark J. Hammond,Brad Abrams

Not only does this book describe the goals and architecture of the .NET Framework, but it also demonstrates how it implements facilities and services to meet these goals. This book shows developers how to produce generic frameworks, libraries, classes, and tools to be used in the .NET Framework.

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564

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Addison-Wesley Professional

Published Date

ISBN 10

0201770180

ISBN 13

9780201770186

Reinforcement Learning and Dynamic Programming Using Function Approximators

By: Lucian Busoniu,Robert Babuska,Bart De Schutter,Damien Ernst

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Reinforcement Learning and Dynamic Programming Using Function Approximators

By: Lucian Busoniu,Robert Babuska,Bart De Schutter,Damien Ernst

From household appliances to applications in robotics, engineered systems involving complex dynamics can only be as effective as the algorithms that control them. While Dynamic Programming (DP) has provided researchers with a way to optimally solve decision and control problems involving complex dynamic systems, its practical value was limited by algorithms that lacked the capacity to scale up to realistic problems. However, in recent years, dramatic developments in Reinforcement Learning (RL), the model-free counterpart of DP, changed our understanding of what is possible. Those developments led to the creation of reliable methods that can be applied even when a mathematical model of the system is unavailable, allowing researchers to solve challenging control problems in engineering, as well as in a variety of other disciplines, including economics, medicine, and artificial intelligence. Reinforcement Learning and Dynamic Programming Using Function Approximators provides a comprehensive and unparalleled exploration of the field of RL and DP. With a focus on continuous-variable problems, this seminal text details essential developments that have substantially altered the field over the past decade. In its pages, pioneering experts provide a concise introduction to classical RL and DP, followed by an extensive presentation of the state-of-the-art and novel methods in RL and DP with approximation. Combining algorithm development with theoretical guarantees, they elaborate on their work with illustrative examples and insightful comparisons. Three individual chapters are dedicated to representative algorithms from each of the major classes of techniques: value iteration, policy iteration, and policy search. The features and performance of these algorithms are highlighted in extensive experimental studies on a range of control applications. The recent development of applications involving complex systems has led to a surge of interest in RL and DP methods and the subsequent need for a quality resource on the subject. For graduate students and others new to the field, this book offers a thorough introduction to both the basics and emerging methods. And for those researchers and practitioners working in the fields of optimal and adaptive control, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and operations research, this resource offers a combination of practical algorithms, theoretical analysis, and comprehensive examples that they will be able to adapt and apply to their own work. Access the authors' website at www.dcsc.tudelft.nl/rlbook/ for additional material, including computer code used in the studies and information concerning new developments.

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280

Publisher

CRC Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1439821097

ISBN 13

9781439821091

First Strike

Educational Enclosures in Black Los Angeles

By: Damien M. Sojoyner

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First Strike

Educational Enclosures in Black Los Angeles

By: Damien M. Sojoyner

California is a state of immense contradictions. Home to colossal wealth and long portrayed as a bastion of opportunity, it also has one of the largest prison populations in the United States and consistently ranks on the bottom of education indexes. Taking a unique, multifaceted insider’s perspective, First Strike delves into the root causes of its ever-expansive prison system and disastrous educational policy. Recentering analysis of Black masculinity beyond public rhetoric, First Strike critiques the trope of the “school-to-prison pipeline” and instead explores the realm of public school as a form of “enclosure” that has influenced the schooling (and denial of schooling) and imprisonment of Black people in California. Through a fascinating ethnography of a public school in Los Angeles County, and a “day in the life tour” of the effect of prisons on the education of Black youth, Damien M. Sojoyner looks at the contestation over education in the Black community from Reconstruction to the civil rights and Black liberation movements of the past three decades. Policy makers, school districts, and local governments have long known that there is a relationship between high incarceration rates and school failure. First Strike is the first book that demonstrates why that connection exists and shows how school districts, cities and states have been complicit and can reverse a disturbing and needless trend. Rather than rely upon state-sponsored ideological or policy-driven models that do nothing more than to maintain structures of hierarchal domination, it allows us to resituate our framework of understanding and begin looking for solutions in spaces that are readily available and are immersed in radically democratic social visions of the future.

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Page Count

378

Publisher

U of Minnesota Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1452951810

ISBN 13

9781452951812

These Were People Once

The Online Trade in Human Remains and Why It Matters

By: Damien Huffer,Shawn Graham

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These Were People Once

The Online Trade in Human Remains and Why It Matters

By: Damien Huffer,Shawn Graham

People buy and sell human remains online. Most of this trade these days is over social media. In a study of this ‘bone trade’, how it works, and why it matters, the authors review and use a variety of methods drawn from the digital humanities to analyze the sheer volume of social media posts in search of answers to questions regarding this online bone trade. The answers speak to how the 21st century understands and constructs ‘heritage’ more generally: each person their own expert, yet seeking community and validation, and like the major encyclopedic museums, built on a kind of digital neocolonialist othering of the dead.

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312

Publisher

Berghahn Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1805393634

ISBN 13

9781805393634

International Development

Issues and Challenges

By: Damien Kingsbury,John McKay,Janet Hunt

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International Development

Issues and Challenges

By: Damien Kingsbury,John McKay,Janet Hunt

This comprehensive and broad-ranging introductory textbook examines the key aspects of contemporary international development from both a practical and theoretical perspective. It addresses the fundamental question of what 'development' actually is and examines social, economic and environmental developments around the world. Written by experts with extensive field experience, this text introduces key issues in the development debate from how the developing world is changing global order to discussions on gender and development as well as security and development. International Development is a critical and interdisciplinary introduction to the contested field of development that is the ideal companion for both undergraduate and postgraduate students studying modules in development on degrees in international politics, international relations and development studies. This title will also appeal to policy-makers working in areas of development and professionals working in the area.

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Page Count

406

Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1137429429

ISBN 13

9781137429421

Dope in the Age of Innocence

By: Damien Enright

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Dope in the Age of Innocence

By: Damien Enright

Ibiza, 1960: on the beautiful Mediterranean island, the high-rise resorts are still decades away. By chance, Damien Enright, twenty-one-years old and Irish, arrives there with his wife and two children and finds a handful of down-at-heel foreign Bohemians leading wild, hedonistic lives. He and his wife get involved; their marriage quickly breaks down and he spends two heartbroken years in London before returning to Ibiza with a new partner and another child. They take LSD and inspired by dreams of a brave new world, cross to the remote island of Formentera to lead alternative lives.This is a decade before Howard Marks becameMr. Nice: the embryonic drug culture in the west motivated not by profit but by idealism. Sometimes, that early search for freedom ventured not just beyond the mind but beyond the law. To sustain their families on Formentera, Enright and two desperado pals head to London in a beat-up car and do some risky travellers cheque scams. Then, restless and unsure of his love for his partner, he makes a hair-raising trek to Turkey in the depths of winter to find hashish for the group. Things go badly awry and he find himself a fugitive, at the mercy of unreliable friends. Part road story, drug story, love story,Dope in the Age of Innocenceis fundamentally a parable about drug enlightenment, the loss and rediscovery of love and the tempering of innocence.

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295

Publisher

Liberties Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1909718742

ISBN 13

9781909718746

Dolly Parton All the Songs

The Story Behind Every Track

By: Simon Benoît,Damien Somville,Lalie Walker

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Dolly Parton All the Songs

The Story Behind Every Track

By: Simon Benoît,Damien Somville,Lalie Walker

Take a deep dive into Dolly Parton’s almost 60 year career with this complete guide featuring more than 400 photographs, little-known stories behind each album, and behind-the-scenes details about the recording of each track, the musicians involved, and the songwriting process. Organized chronologically, and covering every album and every song that Dolly has ever released, Dolly Parton All the Songs is the result of years of research by three Dolly megafans and longtime music journalists. Beginning with a childhood famously spent making music with her family in Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains, Dolly Parton All the Songs follows along as the country music superstar conquers Nashville, Hollywood, and then the world with her captivating music, unforgettable style, and unmatched humor and kindness. At 608 pages, Dolly Parton All the Songs is filled with amazing photographs of Dolly in all her glory, and it features tons of fascinating details about Dolly's recording process, including which musicians appeared on each track, and little-known details about her working relationship with Porter Wagoner (she wrote the classic track "I Will Always Love You" about him), as well as looking at her forays into film stardom with appearances in classic movies like 9 to 5, Steel Magnolias, and the recent Netflix series, Heartstrings. This is a must-have book for any fan of Dolly Parton and country music.

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Page Count

997

Publisher

Black Dog & Leventhal

Published Date

ISBN 10

076248585X

ISBN 13

9780762485857

Freedom, Responsibility and Economics of the Person

By: Jérôme Ballet,Damien Bazin,Jean-Luc Dubois,François-Régis Mahieu

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Freedom, Responsibility and Economics of the Person

By: Jérôme Ballet,Damien Bazin,Jean-Luc Dubois,François-Régis Mahieu

The capability approach has developed significantly since Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998. It is now recognised as being highly beneficial in the analysis of poverty and inequality, but also in the redefinition of policies aimed at improving the well-being of individuals. The approach has been applied within numerous sectors, from health and education to sustainable development, but beyond the obvious interest that it represents for the classical economics tradition, it has also encountered certain limitations. While acknowledging the undeniable progress that the approach has made in renewing the thinking on the development and well-being of a population, this book takes a critical stance. It focuses particularly on the approach’s inadequacy vis-à-vis the continental phenomenological tradition and draws conclusions about the economic analysis of development. In a more specific sense, it highlights the fact that the approach is too bound by standard economic logic, which has prevented it from taking account of a key ‘person’ dimension — namely, the ability of an individual to assume responsibility. As a result, this book advocates the notion that if the approach is used carelessly in relation to development policies, it can cause a number of pernicious effects, some of which may lead to disastrous consequences. Due to its multidisciplinary nature, this book will be of interest to those working in the fields of economics, philosophy, development studies and sociology.

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229

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1135140073

ISBN 13

9781135140076

Diverse Pathways to Parenthood

From Narratives to Practice

By: Damien Riggs

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Diverse Pathways to Parenthood

From Narratives to Practice

By: Damien Riggs

Diverse Pathways to Parenthood: From Narratives to Practice is a timely contribution to the study of reproduction and parenthood. Drawing on a wide breadth of projects, this book covers topics such as first time parents, donor conception, pregnancy loss, surrogacy, lesbian, gay and/or transgender parenting, fostering and adoption, grandparenting, and human/animal kinship. By presenting individual narratives focused on reproduction and parenthood, this book successfully translates empirical research into practical, applied outcomes that will be of use for all those working in the fields of reproduction and parenthood. Including recommendations for fertility specialists, educators, child protection agencies, reproductive counselors, and policy makers, Diverse Pathways to Parenthood: From Narratives to Practice is a vital new resource that will help guide practice into the future. As a contribution to the field of critical kinship studies, this book heralds new directions for the study of kinship, by revisiting as well as reimagining how we think about, research, and respond to a diversity of kinship forms. - Includes over 70 narratives representative of hundreds of interviews collected as a part of 15 research projects undertaken over the past decade - Supported by a companion website that provides further materials and information: www.diversepathways.com - Translates critical kinship studies theory into applied tools for practice in the fields of reproduction and parenthood

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196

Publisher

Academic Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0128162902

ISBN 13

9780128162903

The Last Good Year

Seven Games That Ended an Era

By: Damien Cox

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The Last Good Year

Seven Games That Ended an Era

By: Damien Cox

Nominated for the 2019 Toronto Heritage Book Award We may never see a playoff series like it again. Before Gary Bettman, and the lockouts. Before all the NHL's old barns were torn down to make way for bigger, glitzier rinks. Before expansion and parity across the league, just about anything could happen on the ice. And it often did. It was an era when huge personalities dominated the sport; and willpower was often enough to win games. And in the spring of 1993, some of the biggest talents and biggest personalities were on a collision course. The Cinderella Maple Leafs had somehow beaten the mighty Red Wings and then, just as improbably, the St. Louis Blues. Wayne Gretzky's Kings had just torn through the Flames and the Canucks. When they faced each other in the conference final, the result would be a series that fans still talk about passionately 25 years later. Taking us back to that feverish spring, The Last Good Year gives an intimate account not just of an era-defining seven games, but of what the series meant to the men who were changed by it: Marty McSorley, the tough guy who took his whole team on his shoulders; Doug Gilmour, the emerging superstar; celebrity owner Bruce McNall; Bill Berg, who went from unknown to famous when the Leafs claimed him on waivers; Kelly Hrudey, the Kings' goalie who would go on to become a Hockey Night in Canada broadcaster; Kerry Fraser, who would become the game's most infamous referee; and two very different captains, Toronto's bull in a china shop, Wendel Clark, and the immortal Wayne Gretzky. Fast-paced, authoritative, and galvanized by the same love of the game that made the series so unforgettable, The Last Good Year is a glorious testament to a moment hockey fans will never forget.

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Page Count

240

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0735234779

ISBN 13

9780735234772

Recovery from Depression Using the Narrative Approach

A Guide for Doctors, Complementary Therapists and Mental Health Professionals

By: Damien Ridge

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Recovery from Depression Using the Narrative Approach

A Guide for Doctors, Complementary Therapists and Mental Health Professionals

By: Damien Ridge

Recovery from Depression Using the Narrative Approach explores people's experiences of depression, recovery and available treatments. The author explains how, by selecting a variety of 'narrative tools', such as talking therapies, yoga and complementary therapies, as well as conventional medical approaches, people can take control of their condition. By choosing more helpful narratives, they can gain a greater insight into depression, self-management and long-term recovery. Written with a range of professionals in mind, including doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, complementary therapists, community psychiatric nurses and talking therapists, this evidence-based book offers guidance on how to be an 'ally' in promoting patients' recovery.

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Page Count

210

Publisher

Jessica Kingsley Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1846428785

ISBN 13

9781846428784

Unseen

Unpublished Black History from the New York Times Photo Archives

By: Dana Canedy,Darcy Eveleigh,Damien Cave,Rachel L. Swarns

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Unseen

Unpublished Black History from the New York Times Photo Archives

By: Dana Canedy,Darcy Eveleigh,Damien Cave,Rachel L. Swarns

Hundreds of stunning images from Black history have been buried in the New York Times photo archives for decades. Four Times staff members unearth these overlooked photographs and investigate the stories behind them in this remarkable collection. New York Times photo editor Darcy Eveleigh made an unwitting discovery when she found dozens of never-before-published photographs from Black history in the crowded bins of the Times archives in 2016. She and three colleagues, Dana Canedy, Damien Cave, and Rachel L. Swarns, began exploring the often untold stories behind the images and chronicling them in a series entitled “Unpublished Black History” that was later published by the newspaper. Unseen showcases those photographs and digs even deeper into the Times’s archives to include 175 photographs and the stories behind them in this extraordinary collection. Among the entries is a 27-year-old Jesse Jackson leading an anti-discrimination rally in Chicago; Rosa Parks arriving at a Montgomery courthouse in Alabama; a candid shot of Aretha Franklin backstage at the Apollo Theater; Ralph Ellison on the streets of his Manhattan neighborhood; the firebombed home of Malcolm X; and a series by Don Hogan Charles, the first black photographer hired by the Times, capturing life in Harlem in the 1960s. Why were these striking photographs not published? Did the images not arrive in time to make the deadline? Were they pushed aside by the biases of editors, whether intentional or unintentional? Unseen dives deep into the Times’s archives to showcase this rare collection of photographs and stories for the very first time.

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Page Count

487

Publisher

Black Dog & Leventhal

Published Date

ISBN 10

0316552976

ISBN 13

9780316552974

Alien Starswarm / Human's Burden (Wildside Double #6)

By: Robert Sheckley,Damien Broderick,Rory Barnes

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Alien Starswarm / Human's Burden (Wildside Double #6)

By: Robert Sheckley,Damien Broderick,Rory Barnes

In the tradition of the old "Ace Doubles" (flip one book over to read the second title)--here is the sixth Wildside Double. ALIEN STARSWARM, by Robert Sheckley Salvatore commands the battleship Endymion. He's seen his share of battles and fought them bravely, too. So he doesn't hesitate when beautiful Princess Hatari pleads for his help. She wants to regain her throne, but it may be more than Salvatore can accomplish, for the deadly race known as the Balderdash has taken over the planet Melchior--and now, even his own men have turned against him! HUMAN'S BURDEN, by Damien Broderick and Rory Barnes Poor Jack Wong is a clueless cadet at the Unified Space Academy when his pod is stranded on a planet of disgusting aliens. All he wants to do, other than escape, is to fulfill his proud duty to advance Earth Culture's Primary Heuristic: "Wherever possible, find the weak spot in an alien civilization and interfere as much as possible for the benefit of humanity." It's the Human's Burden! But everything comes unstuck, made worse by his irritating Machiavellian AI. And that's just the start of Jack's troubles in space and time....

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280

Publisher

Wildside Press LLC

Published Date

ISBN 10

1434411850

ISBN 13

9781434411853

Melville's Wisdom

Religion, Skepticism, and Literature in Nineteenth-century America

By: Damien B. Schlarb

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Melville's Wisdom

Religion, Skepticism, and Literature in Nineteenth-century America

By: Damien B. Schlarb

This book explores the manner in which Herman Melville responds to the spiritual crisis of modernity by using the language of the biblical Old Testament wisdom books to moderate contemporary discourses on religion, skepticism, and literature. Melville's work is an example of how romantic literature fills the interpretive lacuna left by contemporary theology. Damien Schlarb argues that attending to Melville's engagement with the wisdom books (Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes) can help us understand a paradox at the heart of American modernity: the simultaneous displacement and affirmation of biblical language and religious culture. In wisdom, which addresses questions of theology, radical scepticism, and the nature of evil, Melville finds an ethos of critical inquiry that allows him to embrace the acumen of modern analytical techniques such as higher biblical criticism, while salvaging simultaneously the spiritual authority of biblical language. Wisdom for Melville constitutes both object and analytical framework in this balancing act. Melville's Wisdom joins other works of postsecular literary studies in challenging its own discipline's constitutive secularization narrative by rethinking modern, putatively secular cultural formations in terms of their reciprocity with religious concepts and texts. Schlarb foregrounds Melville's sustained, career-spanning concern with biblical wisdom, its formal properties, and its knowledge-creating potential. By excavating this project from Melville's oeuvre, Melville's Wisdom shows how he seeks to avoid the spiritually corrosive effects of suspicious reading while celebrating truth-seeking over subversive iniquity"--

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Page Count

273

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0197585566

ISBN 13

9780197585566

Max Gate

By: Damien Wilkins

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Max Gate

By: Damien Wilkins

The story of Thomas Hardy’s death told by his housemaid Nellie. 1928. As Thomas Hardy lies on his death bed at his Dorset home, Max Gate, a tug-of-war is taking place over his legacy ... and the eventual fate of his mortal remains. What counts for more: the wishes of his family and dutiful second wife, Florence? the opinion of his literary friends? Hardy’s own express desires? or ‘the will of the nation’? Narrated with wit and brutal honesty by housemaid Nellie Titterington, Max Gate is both an entertaining insight into the eccentricities of a writer’s life, and a raw, intriguing tale of torn loyalty, ownership and jealousy.

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Page Count

173

Publisher

Gallic Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1910709212

ISBN 13

9781910709214

Les Témoins du Temps

By: Damien Bournac

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Les Témoins du Temps

By: Damien Bournac

Leslie est une jeune femme comme les autres, du moins c'est ce qu'elle croit... Sans le savoir, elle possede certaines capacites hors normes dont elle se sert pour aider les gens, parfois meme en leur sauvant la vie. C'est ce qui lui vaut d'etre reperee par le colonel Campbell. Apres l'avoir observee a chaque moment crucial de sa vie, il decide de lui proposer de se joindre a son equipe d'elite. Leur objectif: etudier mais surtout proteger le temps. Sceptique au debut, Leslie se laissera pourtant convaincre de le suivre et se retrouvera plongee dans un conflit temporel sans precedent. Car un redoutable ennemi disparu depuis pres d'un millenaire refait surface, bien decide a modifier le passe a son avantage. Un groupuscule qui ne recule devant rien. La Confrerie des Assassins.

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