The use of pattern recognition and classification is fundamental to many of the automated electronic systems in use today. However, despite the existence of a number of notable books in the field, the subject remains very challenging, especially for the beginner. Pattern Recognition and Classification presents a comprehensive introduction to the core concepts involved in automated pattern recognition. It is designed to be accessible to newcomers from varied backgrounds, but it will also be useful to researchers and professionals in image and signal processing and analysis, and in computer vision. Fundamental concepts of supervised and unsupervised classification are presented in an informal, rather than axiomatic, treatment so that the reader can quickly acquire the necessary background for applying the concepts to real problems. More advanced topics, such as semi-supervised classification, combining clustering algorithms and relevance feedback are addressed in the later chapters. This book is suitable for undergraduates and graduates studying pattern recognition and machine learning.
Image processing is a hands-on discipline, and the best way to learn is by doing. This text takes its motivation from medical applications and uses real medical images and situations to illustrate and clarify concepts and to build intuition, insight and understanding. Designed for advanced undergraduates and graduate students who will become end-users of digital image processing, it covers the basics of the major clinical imaging modalities, explaining how the images are produced and acquired. It then presents the standard image processing operations, focusing on practical issues and problem solving. Crucially, the book explains when and why particular operations are done, and practical computer-based activities show how these operations affect real images. All images, links to the public-domain software ImageJ and custom plug-ins, and selected solutions are available from www.cambridge.org/books/dougherty.
Would you Adam and Eve it? Over a hundred years after it was first heard on the streets of Ye Olde London Towne, Cockney rhyming slang is still going strong, and this book contains the most comprehensive and entertaining guide yet. Presented in an easy-to-read A to Z format, it explains the meaning of hundreds of terms, from old favourites such as apples and pears (stairs) and plates of meat (feet) to the more obscure band of hope (soap) and cuts and scratches (matches) through to modern classics such as Anthea Turner (earner) and Ashley Cole (own goal), as well as providing fascinating background info and curious Cockney facts throughout. Also included are a series of language tests so that readers can brush up on their newfound knowledge on their way to becoming a true Cockney Geezer. All in all, The Ultimate Cockney Geezer's Guide to Rhyming Slang is well worth your bread and honey to have a butcher's.
During the First World War, Henri Bourassa – fierce Canadian nationalist, politician, and journalist from Quebec – took centre stage in the national debates on Canada’s participation in the war, its imperial ties to Britain, and Canada’s place in the world. In Duty to Dissent, Geoff Keelan draws upon Bourassa’s voluminous editorials in Le Devoir, the newspaper he founded in 1910, to trace Bourassa’s evolving perspective on the war’s meaning and consequences. What emerges is not a simplistic sketch of a local journalist engaged in national debates, as most English Canadians know him, but a fully rendered portrait of a Canadian looking out at the world. By situating Bourassa within a larger panorama that connects him to prominent war resisters from around the globe, Keelan offers fresh insight into one of Canada’s most influential historical figures, reshaping our understanding of why Quebec’s position on the Great War differed so radically from the rest of Canada.
The recent boom of Texas hold 'em has forever changed the way the game is played. Many more people know how to play this game well. Even the "loose" players who come to gamble have become far more aggressive, making them more difficult to play against. So a basic tight and patient strategy will no longer guarantee that you can make a significant amount of money in games at the higher stakes. This is especially true short-handed, which have become increasingly popular in the online poker rooms. This text is the first to tackle the complex issues presented when playing short-handed and high-stakes limit hold 'em. But even if you happen to only play in softer games, many of the key concepts presented will still help you against the other good players in your game. Winning in Tough Hold 'em Games includes an examination of pre-flop play, covering issues at a depth of sophistication which have never appeared in print before including discussions of blind stealing, re-stealing, isolating a loose player, big blind and small blind defense, and blind versus blind play. Also covered are thorough sections on playing heads-up post flop and semi-bluffing. In addition, over 50 hands, taken from high stakes online games which were played by "Stoxtrader," are presented along with appropriate discussion of the strategy involved. Book jacket.
The crime film genre consists of detective films, gangster films, suspense thrillers, film noir, and caper films and is produced throughout the world. Crime film was there at the birth of cinema, and it has accompanied cinema over more than a century of history, passing from silent films to talkies, from black-and-white to color. The genre includes such classics as The Maltese Falcon, The Godfather, Gaslight, The French Connection, and Serpico, as well as more recent successes like Seven, Drive, and L.A. Confidential. The Historical Dictionary of Crime Films covers the history of this genre through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on key films, directors, performers, and studios. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about crime cinema. -- from Amazon.com.
The incredible story of a flood of near-biblical proportions -- its destruction, its heroes and victims, and how it shaped America's natural-disaster policies for the next century. The storm began March 23, 1913, with a series of tornadoes that killed 150 people and injured 400. Then the freezing rains started and the flooding began. It continued for days. Some people drowned in their attics, others on the roads when they tried to flee. It was the nation's most widespread flood ever—more than 700 people died, hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings were destroyed, and millions were left homeless. The destruction extended far beyond the Ohio valley to Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, New York, New Jersey, and Vermont. Fourteen states in all, and every major and minor river east of the Mississippi. In the aftermath, flaws in America's natural disaster response system were exposed, echoing today's outrage over Katrina. People demanded change. Laws were passed, and dams were built. Teams of experts vowed to develop flood control techniques for the region and stop flooding for good. So far those efforts have succeeded. It is estimated that in the Miami Valley alone, nearly 2,000 floods have been prevented, and the same methods have been used as a model for flood control nationwide and around the world.
A history of New Zealanders and the sports that we have made our own, from the Maori world to today's professional athletes.&‘. . . those two mighty products of the land, the Canterbury lamb and the All Blacks, have made New Zealand what she is in spite of politicians' claims to the contrary', wrote Dick Brittenden in 1954. &‘For many in New Zealand, prowess at sport replaces the social graces; in the pubs, during the furious session between 5pm and closing time an hour later, the friend of a relative of a horse trainer is a veritable patriarch. No matador in Madrid, no tenor in Turin could be sure of such flattering attention.' As Brittenden suggested, sport has played a central part in the social and cultural history of Aotearoa New Zealand throughout its history. This book tells the story of sport in New Zealand for the first time, from the Maori world to today's professional athletes. Through rugby and netball, bodybuilding and surf lifesaving, the book introduces readers to the history of the codes, the organisations and the players. It takes us into the stands and on to the sidelines to examine the meaning of sport to its participants, its followers, and to the communities to which they belonged. Why did rugby become much more important than soccer in New Zealand? What role have Maori played in our sporting life? Do we really &‘punch above our weight' in international sport? Does sport still define our national identity? Viewing New Zealand sport as activity and as imagination, Sport and the New Zealanders is a major history of a central strand of New Zealand life.
A humorous collection of hundreds of funny news stories, whacky phenomena, and hilarious blunders and gaffes from around the world, such as: the woman who smuggled 75 live snakes in her bra; the man who held a funeral for his amputated foot; the radioactive cat which got mistaken for a bomb; the human tongue that got served up in a hospital; the X-ray that revealed E.T.'s face in a duck; the youth who woke to find a bullet in his tongue; the tortoise that set a house on fire; and many more.
The independent sector has produced many of the most distinctive films to have appeared in the US in recent decades. From 'Sex, Lies and Videotape' in the 1980s to 'The Blair Witch Project' and New Queer Cinema in the 1990s and the ultra-low budget digital video features of the 2000s, indie films have thrived, creating a body of work that stands out from the dominant Hollywood mainstream. But what exactly is 'independent' cinema? This, the first book to examine the question in detail, argues that independence can be defined partly in industry terms but also according to formal and aesthetic strategies and by distinctive attitudes towards social and political issues, suggesting that independence is a dynamic rather than a fixed quality. Chapters focus on distribution and relationships with Hollywood studios; narrative ('Clerks' and 'Slacker' to 'Pulp Fiction', 'Magnolia' and 'Memento') and other formal dimensions (from 'Blair Witch's' 'authenticity' to expressive and stylized camerawork and editing in work from Harmony Korine to the Coen brothers); approaches to genre and alternative socio-political visions.
The conservation movement opposing the 19th-century torching of forests by British settlers is appraised in this collection of essays from a leading New Zealand environmentalist. The book delves into subjects as diverse as William Wordsworth, Charles Darwin, the rise of nature tourism, the ecology of the inhabited landscape, environmental management in Indonesia, the ecological practices of the early Pakeha settlers, and the Urewera landscape paintings of Colin McCahon.
This book provides a compelling insider's account of how Nike became the world's largest sports and fitness company. It includes a dedicated mailing and e-mail campaign to targeted sports interest media & organizations. How does a young boy from a small Oregon town get swept up in the politics of his chosen sport and become an integral part of possibly the most influential sports company of all time - Nike. Nike began with a handshake and a few hundred dollars passed between Phil Knight and legendary track coach Bill Bowerman more than 35 years ago - and since then it has grown into the world's largest sports and fitness company. "Out of Nowhere" provides an unrivalled glimpse into the first 33 years of Nike - from its humble beginnings to its modern guise as a global giant - and takes readers on a rollercoaster ride through all of the company's successes and failures.
The use of pattern recognition and classification is fundamental to many of the automated electronic systems in use today. However, despite the existence of a number of notable books in the field, the subject remains very challenging, especially for the beginner. Pattern Recognition and Classification presents a comprehensive introduction to the core concepts involved in automated pattern recognition. It is designed to be accessible to newcomers from varied backgrounds, but it will also be useful to researchers and professionals in image and signal processing and analysis, and in computer vision. Fundamental concepts of supervised and unsupervised classification are presented in an informal, rather than axiomatic, treatment so that the reader can quickly acquire the necessary background for applying the concepts to real problems. More advanced topics, such as semi-supervised classification, combining clustering algorithms and relevance feedback are addressed in the later chapters. This book is suitable for undergraduates and graduates studying pattern recognition and machine learning.
The Sturgeon General is an anthology of comedic writing, compiling short works of fiction and non-fiction and other miscellany for the hilarious good of all. Each issue features the work of a single comedy writer. This edition is a collection of non-fiction articles from writer Geoff Lemon. It includes his article from 2011 'You Shut Your Goddamn Carbon Taxin Mouth' – an hilarious rant against the nay-sayers of the proposed carbon tax, which was a viral phenomenon. The collection also includes an array of inspired and witty political and travel writing, including an epic series of misadventures in South America.
Sixty extraordinary years of Eurovision, from Céline Dion to Dustin the Turkey, from Abba to Conchita Wurst - the drag acts, the bad acts and all the nul points heroes. For 60 years the Eurovision Song Contest has existed in a parallel universe where a song about the construction of a hydro-electric power station is considered cutting-edge pop, where half a dozen warbling Russian grandmothers are considered Saturday night entertainment, where a tune repeating the word 'la' 138 times is considered a winner, and where Australia is considered part of Europe During those sixty years we have witnessed scandals: in 1957, Denmark's Birthe Wilke and Gustav Winckler enjoyed an outrageously long 13-second kiss because the stage manager forgot to say 'cut' during the live broadcast. We have witnessed national outrage: the 1976 Greek entry was a savage indictment of Turkish foreign policy in Cyprus. But most have all we have witnessed silly costumes, terrible lyrics and performers as diverse as Celine Dion and Dustin the Turkey. This book chronicles the 100 craziest moments in the history of Eurovision - the drag acts, the bad acts, the nul points heroes and the night in Luxembourg when the floor manager warned the audience not to stand up while they applauded because they might be shot by security forces. It captures some of the magic from this yearly event that continues to beguile and bemuse in equal measure.
I laughed a lot and now understand blokes a lot more than I ever wanted to' - Katherine Ryan 'Geoff is one of the funniest intelligent thinkers in comedy and this book reflects that perfectly' - Romesh Ranganathan 'Funny and insightful, it makes serious points without committing the cardinal sin of taking itself too seriously. ' - Adrian Chiles 'Highly informative. Geoff will make a proper bloke out of me yet.' - Hugo Rifkind 'A brilliant and hilarious book which defends blokes without denigrating women' - Konstantin Kisin If you see a man drinking a pint in an airport pub alone, that's a bloke. If you see a man driving to the tip on a Saturday morning with a smile on his face, that's a bloke. And if you see a man heading back from the tip and on the way to the pub, that's a very happy bloke. The British Bloke appears simple and straightforward. He loves football, cricket, beer and sheds. But beneath that simple exterior lies a mysterious and complex being... In The British Bloke Decoded, writer, comedian and regular bloke, Geoff Norcott, peels back the layers of blokedom, revealing the truth behind the behaviour of Britain's husbands, dads, brothers and friends. He dives into the value of banter, the roots of mansplaining, the near impossibility of getting blokes to send birthday cards, and whether there could be a medal system for vacuuming. Based on 46 years of intensive field research and semi-scientific insights, this book is a celebration of. the simple British bloke in all his splendour.
Funny when it goes in for burlesque but screamingly so when it simply delivers the evidence' Independent Like the critically acclaimed Bremner, Bird and Fortune series on Channel 4, YOU ARE HERE picks away at the scabs of international politics with the voice and credibility of Rory and the two Johns, and appeals to an audience hungry for a mix of entertainment and information - tough facts made funny. The book lampoons the contradiction at the heart of Britain since Tony Blair became Prime Minister after the landslide General Election result of 1997. In the fog of confusion created by New Labour, it can be difficult to discover the real truth. After all, why spin if you don't want people to get dizzy? What the British reader needs is this witty and original map explaining how it all connects, a guide to how we got here - completely updated now for paperback edition.
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