This book describes the author's trials and tribulations mixed with the surprise and joy he experienced as he struggled to learn English. Although he had English lessons in Taiwan, he was aware that his rudimentary knowledge of English was far from adequate. He recalls wasting time arguing and guessing with his college friends about the meanings and the origins of English words such as cocktail and hot dog. Drinks have something to do with cocks' tails and food with dogs? He would soon find out that more curious words were waiting for him when he headed for the U.S. As he became assimilated with the passing of time, he made friends named Burnside, Williams, Little and Old. Little and Old? He has chuckled at the free-wheeling ways of people naming themselves. He also wondered what Lincoln, Ford and Reagan meant. He has gone Dutch with friends and had hamburgers for lunch. With his friends he has watched a south paw pitcher throw a foul ball to flatten a batter, prompting all the players to rush out from the bull pen to start a fight. He was puzzled hearing "son of a gun" uttered by his excited friends. He thanked a person and was totally lost when he was told "you bet." During a morning walk in the park, the gentle breeze prompted him to wonder why the word wind could be pronounced two ways and had two completely different meanings. He learned many American idioms and expressions such as "lock, stock and barrel" or "as happy as a clam." What? Please run those by me again. Many wonderful idioms and expressons such as "green-eyed jealousy," "a tower of strength" and "in a pickle" came from England. When you hear "if you act more in sorrow than in anger" or "if you have played fast and loose" you know that they came from England. The English language, with its many centuries of constant growth and change, has become the premier language of the world. It is simple, direct, flexible, expressive and creative. It has become the lingua franca, a second official language of some countries, the language of many mutil-national corporations and of the scientific and business world. The author explores many aspects of the English language from the view points of an immigrant, hoping that his expereinces will help those who may encounter puzzling words and idioms of their new country. He hopes that this book will stimulate and bring joy to any one who wants to widen and deepen his knowledge of English.
This book focuses on the current internal and external situation China is facing both from a macro perspective and a theoretical height, and puts forward practical development strategies and diplomatic ideas. It is of great methodological significance. At home, the development thought after the conclusion of the hundred-year change is the guiding thought for China's further development, and abroad, the international communication and the construction of international order highlighted by the hundred-year change also have important reference significance for the world's development.
This publication catalogue focuses on twelve masterpieces of Chinese landscape and figure paintings. An essay by Wen C. Fong presents an in-depth stylistic analysis and contextual history of the famed Riverbank; a detailed physical analysis is also included. An extended essay by Maxwell K. Hearn examines all twelve major paintings in the book, which range in date from the tenth to the early eighteenth century. -- Metropolitan Museum of Art website.
Streamflow forecasting is of great importance to water resources management and flood defense. On the other hand, a better understanding of the streamflow process is fundamental for improving the skill of streamflow forecasting. The methods for forecasting streamflows may fall into two general classes: process-driven methods and data-driven methods. Equivalently, methods for understanding streamflow processes may also be broken into two categories: physically-based methods and mathematically-based methods. This thesis focuses on using mathematically-based methods to analyze stochasticity and nonlinearity of streamflow processes based on univariate historic streamflow records, and presents data-driven models that are also mainly based on univariate streamflow time series. Six streamflow processes of five rivers in different geological regions are investigated for stochasticity and nonlinearity at several characteristic timescales.
Neurons in the nervous system organize into complex networks and their functions are precisely controlled. The most important means for neurons to communicate with each other is transmission through chemical synapses, where the release of neurotransmitters by the presynaptic nerve terminal of one neuron influences the function of a second neuron. Since the discovery of chemical neurotransmission by Otto Loewi in the 1920s, great progress has been made in our understanding of mol- ular mechanisms of neurotransmitter release. The last decade has seen an explosion of knowledge in this field. The aim of Molecular Mechanisms of Neurotransmitter Release is to provide up-to-date, in-depth coverage of essentially all major mole- lar mechanisms of neurotransmitter release. The contributors have made great efforts to write concisely but with sufficient background information, and to use figures/diagrams to present clearly key concepts or experiments. It is hoped that this book may serve as a learning tool for neuroscience students, a solid reference for neuroscientists, and a source of knowledge for people who have a general interest in neuroscience. I was fortunate to be able to gather contributions from a group of outstanding scientists. I thank them for their efforts. In particular, I want to thank Dr. Erik Jorgensen who offered valuable suggestions about the book in addition to contrib- ing an excellent chapter. I thank US National Science Foundation and National Institute of Health for their supports.
This book offers a novel approach to data privacy by unifying side-channel attacks within a general conceptual framework. This book then applies the framework in three concrete domains. First, the book examines privacy-preserving data publishing with publicly-known algorithms, studying a generic strategy independent of data utility measures and syntactic privacy properties before discussing an extended approach to improve the efficiency. Next, the book explores privacy-preserving traffic padding in Web applications, first via a model to quantify privacy and cost and then by introducing randomness to provide background knowledge-resistant privacy guarantee. Finally, the book considers privacy-preserving smart metering by proposing a light-weight approach to simultaneously preserving users' privacy and ensuring billing accuracy. Designed for researchers and professionals, this book is also suitable for advanced-level students interested in privacy, algorithms, or web applications.
This book intends to report the new results of the efforts on the study of Layered Intelligence of the Machine Brain (LIMB). The book collects novel research ideas in LIMB and summarizes the current machine intelligence level as “five layer intelligence”- environments sensing, active learning, cognitive computing, intelligent decision making and automatized execution. The book is likely to be of interest to university researchers, R&D engineers and graduate students in computer science and electronics who wish to learn the core principles, methods, algorithms, and applications of LIMB.
This book systematically presents 40 pests, 7 natural pest enemies, and 20 diseases and weeds commonly encountered in sugarcane production, combining clear colour photos with detailed scientific descriptions. It covers a range of related topics, including morphological identification, habits and frequency of occurrence, prevention and control measures, symptom identification, characteristics of infections and epidemics, parasitic (predator) characteristics, ways of utilising natural pest enemies, main species and distribution, fluctuation in the field, and chemical control of weeds. With novel content presented in simple, straightforward language, the book provides a valuable reference guide for scientific researchers, educators and industrial practitioners, as well as students and advisers at agricultural universities.
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