Sam Brown sets out on a road trip from his home in a small California desert town to the cooler, greener climes of the Northwest. He tells himself he just needs a break, from his father, a dead-end relationship with a stripper, his job as a nurse, and his troubled best friend. But what he can't escape, no matter how many miles he travels, is the memory of his mother, July, who was brutally murdered sixteen years earlier and visits him regularly in his dreams. Sam's grief is sorely renewed when he learns July's murderer is soon to be released from prison. Overcome by strong feelings of panic and revenge, he turns to women. He reconnects with a former patient in Los Angeles. In Santa Barbara he meets a sage/philosopher who inspires him to put order in his life. In Oregon, he falls in love with an arborist whose woodsy home provides peace and refuge-at least for a while. Simultaneous with Sam's journey, his mother's story unfolds, coming to a climax when the details of July's grisly murder are revealed. Through a fast-paced, gripping narrative, Heat Signature explores the complexities of family and friendship, love and loss, race and sexuality. Visit www.lisateasley.com

"Guidelines for using multi-media technology to train the thermal signatures of combat vehicles were developed from training effectiveness experiments with a prototype muli-media program and the instructional design literature. The guidelines specify requirements for a database of thermal images. The database must be constructed to support vehicle recognition/identification exercises as well as in basic instruction on thermal technology and on thermal cues. Factors to consider in developing vehicles recognition exercises are presented, to include the exercise format, establishment of vehicle sets, selection of part-task training schedules, and the type of feedback needed for soldiers and instructors. How to generate training strategies that adapt to the skill level of the soldier is described. Flexibility in the instructional design is stressed as the primary means of meeting the varied training requirements within the military. The need for an instructor's guide describing how to maximize the training features in a flexible training program is emphasized. The guidelines were applied to a multi-media, thermal training program developed in conjuction with the Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate and the manager for Forward Looking Infrared."--Stinet.

Expanded and completely rewritten with information on grow rooms, greenhouses and outdoor growing, medicinal cannabis, security, lighting, fertilisers, hydroponics, Sea of Green, seeds, seedlings, vegetative growth, mother plants, cloning, flowering, harvesting and curing, diseases, pests and hash making. More than 1100 full colour photos and drawings illustrate every detail and numerous simple cultivation solutions make for easy appeal to novice growers. Readers will learn how to achieve the highest, most potent yields, even with limited space and budget.

This book focuses on theoretical thermotics, the theory of transformation thermotics and its extended theories for the active control of macroscopic thermal phenomena of artificial systems, which is in sharp contrast to classical thermodynamics comprising the four thermodynamic laws for the passive description of macroscopic thermal phenomena of natural systems. The book covers the basic concepts and mathematical methods, which are necessary to understand thermal problems extensively investigated in physics, but also in other disciplines of engineering and materials. The analyses rely on models solved by analytical techniques accompanied with computer simulations and laboratory experiments. This book serves both as a reference work for senior researchers and a study text for zero beginners.

Marine special forces Kadin Marks is ordered to pull out an operative who has had her cover blown, but the stubborn Rachel Gannon is not willing to be rescued even after she falls for the handsome Kadin.

The world’s most powerful syndicates are hunting down a man only known as The Ghost. As they do their best to find him, the elusive Ghost takes on a more active role in changing the world and bringing life back to those lacking hope. John Thimes is harboring a family secret that is allowing him to defy the odds and allude capture while pulling people back from the brink. As he takes the battle to those who will do anything to maintain their empires, John journeys throughout the United States and eventually falls in love with the beautiful Emily Bronson while scaling mountain peaks, exploring caverns of ancient cultures and surviving perilous car chases through city streets. Nowhere is safe. While the FBI watches John, only time will tell if they will help or hinder his important mission to rescue humanity, before it is too late. In this action-packed tale, powers beyond comprehension bring together a man and woman who fall in love and then risk everything to save those who cannot be saved.

In war-torn West Africa, the terrorist leader Abu Alhaul and his followers are on the run, pursued by the equally merciless forces of the African National Army—whose goal of a united Africa is achieved by the wholesale slaughter of any who oppose them. When a reconnaissance plane from Amphibious Force Two is hit by a missile, four men are forced to bail out into the middle of a jungle bloodbath—and the hunt is on for the American prey. Admiral Dick Holman knows that any move he makes could ignite a political powder keg. But he also knows that the only way to save his men is to go in and get them out. “On a par with Tom Clancy.”—Milos Stankovic “Meadows will have you turning pages and thinking new thoughts.”—Newt Gingrich

The two volume set LNCS 8047 and 8048 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns, CAIP 2013, held in York, UK, in August 2013. The 142 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 243 submissions. The scope of the conference spans the following areas: 3D TV, biometrics, color and texture, document analysis, graph-based methods, image and video indexing and database retrieval, image and video processing, image-based modeling, kernel methods, medical imaging, mobile multimedia, model-based vision approaches, motion analysis, natural computation for digital imagery, segmentation and grouping, and shape representation and analysis.

Two worlds collide! It is 1941, eighteen-year-old Katerina documents her harrowing flight from Ukraine and the Nazi occupation in her personnel journal. 81 years later, her grandson Ivan Kross and long-time friend Nikolas, meet after five long years. During a friendly game of chess, discussions turn to Ivan’s preoccupation with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, triggering a chain of events irrevocably changing his life. Ivan and his family are drawn into a thrilling vortex of political intrigue, cyber-attacks, AI drone surveillance and covert infiltration. From Geneva to London to Moscow, his path crosses, retired British special forces Lieutenant Colonel Roger Aitkens and his SAS Black OPS team, as well as, outlawed, independent Russian journalist, Arianna Nekraslova, who’s audacity and resources will prove invaluable in navigating through the back alleys of Moscow. The riveting chronicle unfolds into a shattering domino effect, shaking the foundations of the Kremlin and setting in motion ramifications threatening the rule of a Russian Federation on the brink of nuclear armageddon.