Niri wakes up in a beautiful garden, and finds that she has no memories. She is sure she will spend the remainder of her days there, until an unknown friend comes to her aide and reveals the truth about her personal paradise. Discovering that she is Wicca, she embarks on a journey to learn about her powers, the extent of which surprises her at every turn. She must ultimately retrieve her memories and help the higher order of witches imprison the Wicca who stole her memories before she takes the kingdom for herself. A mighty task for a woman of only seventeen.

Discusses the basics of geology, surveys the history of the earth, and describes the development of life on earth

'Frank Reade Jr. and His Engine of the Clouds' is a children's book aimed for young boys, penned by Luis P. Senarens. Frank Reade Jr. is the son of Frank Reade, and just like his father, he too is an inventor-hero. His inventions included airships of the dirigible-balloon and helicopter type, submersibles, steam-driven and electrical land vehicles, and steam- and electric-powered robots.

As cloud technology continues to advance and be utilized, many service providers have begun to employ multiple networks, or cloud federations; however, as the popularity of these federations increases, so does potential utilization challenges. Developing Interoperable and Federated Cloud Architecture provides valuable insight into current and emergent research occurring within the field of cloud infrastructures. Featuring barriers, recent developments, and practical applications on the interoperability issues of federated cloud architectures, this book is a focused reference for administrators, developers, and cloud users interested in energy awareness, scheduling, and federation policies and usage.

The book compiles technologies for enhancing and provisioning security, privacy and trust in cloud systems based on Quality of Service requirements. It is a timely contribution to a field that is gaining considerable research interest, momentum, and provides a comprehensive coverage of technologies related to cloud security, privacy and trust. In particular, the book includes - Cloud security fundamentals and related technologies to-date, with a comprehensive coverage of evolution, current landscape, and future roadmap. - A smooth organization with introductory, advanced and specialist content, i.e. from basics of security, privacy and trust in cloud systems, to advanced cartographic techniques, case studies covering both social and technological aspects, and advanced platforms. - Case studies written by professionals and/or industrial researchers. - Inclusion of a section on Cloud security and eGovernance tutorial that can be used for knowledge transfer and teaching purpose. - Identification of open research issues to help practitioners and researchers. The book is a timely topic for readers, including practicing engineers and academics, in the domains related to the engineering, science, and art of building networks and networked applications. Specifically, upon reading this book, audiences will perceive the following benefits: 1. Learn the state-of-the-art in research and development on cloud security, privacy and trust. 2. Obtain a future roadmap by learning open research issues. 3. Gather the background knowledge to tackle key problems, whose solutions will enhance the evolution of next-generation secure cloud systems.

Cloud computing is often described as providing computing resources the way electric utilities provide energy. In theory, anyone with an adequate connection to the Internet should be able to tap into a cloud provider and get exactly the computing resources they want when they want it, just like plugging into the electricity grid and getting exactly the energy you want when you want it. But to get that electricity, there are many standards: voltage, frequency, phase, motors constructed in standard ways—there is a long list; there is an equally long list for cloud computing. Many of the standards are already in place. Others are being developed; some in contention. Cloud Standards is a broad discussion of important existing and future standards. For existing standards, the discussion focuses on how they are used, providing practical advice to engineers constructing clouds and services to be deployed on clouds. For future standards, the discussion is on why a standard is needed, what the benefits will be, and what is being done now to fill the gap. No current book provides this information in the depth and detail necessary for an engineer in his work, an architect in designing cloud systems, a product manager collecting and evaluating products, or an executive evaluating the feasibility of a project. A second benefit from this book is that it provides insight into cloud implementations. Cloud implementations can be seen as the culmination of many trends in software and hardware engineering. Much of the foundation for these developments have been crystallized in the form of standards like TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) and HTTP (Hypertext Transmission Protocol). The book leads readers to understand how these contribute to and affect cloud implementations. Unfortunately, emerging standards are often messy. Cloud implementers may need to choose between competing proposed standards. Sometimes it is better to reject the standard entirely and "roll your own." This book provides background for intelligent decisions. Keeping a cloud, or an application implemented on a cloud, running well requires careful tuning of the implementation. Tuning often involves adjusting controls that are in the standard or applying the standard in less well-known ways. This book is an aid in tuning cloud systems for maximum benefits.

With the constant stream of emails, social networks, and online bank accounts, technology has become a pervasive part of our everyday lives, making the security of these information systems an essential requirement for both users and service providers. Architectures and Protocols for Secure Information Technology Infrastructures investigates different protocols and architectures that can be used to design, create, and develop security infrastructures by highlighting recent advances, trends, and contributions to the building blocks for solving security issues. This book is essential for researchers, engineers, and professionals interested in exploring recent advances in ICT security.

Gain the practical knowledge you need to plan, design, deploy, and manage mixed cloud and on-premises IT management systems. Drawing on his experience as senior principal software architect at CA Technologies, Marvin Waschke lays out the nuts and bolts of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)—the 5-volume bible of standard IT service management practices that is the single most important tool for aligning IT services with business needs. Many enterprise IT management applications, and the ways they are integrated, come directly from ITIL service management requirements. Types of integration include integrated reporting and dashboards, event-driven integration, device integration, and application data integration. Enterprise integration depends critically on high performance, scalability, and flexibility. Failure to integrate applications to service management requirements results in such wryly anticipated spectacles as the annual crash of the websites of Super Bowl advertisers such as Coca-Cola and Acura. Waschke weighs in on the debate between those who advocate integrating "best-of-breed" applications and those who favor a pre-integrated set of applications from a single vendor. He also rates the strengths and weaknesses of the major architectural patterns—central relational databases, service-oriented architecture (SOA), and enterprise data buses—for IT integration of service management applications. He examines the modifications to traditional service management that are required by virtualized systems of datacenter management and application design. Clouds present special problems for integration. How Clouds Hold IT Together details solutions for integration problems in private, community, and public clouds—especially problems with multi-tenant SaaS applications. Most enterprises are migrating to the cloud gradually rather than at one go. The transitional phase of mixed cloud and on-premises applications presents thorny problems for IT management. Waschke shows the reader how to normalize the performance and capacity measurements of concurrent traditional and cloud resources.

The Nebulus By: Garrett W McIntire Earth, as we know it, is gone. The human race is dwindling and in danger of extinction. The hope of mankind falls on one crew in a desperate mission aboard the Sabina. This crew of sixteen must travel to the closest inhabitable planet to their space station and put their training to the test. However, space travel is incredibly challenging and unpredictable; if something can go wrong, it typically does. And with the fate of the world on their shoulders, there’s no room for error. Instead, the crew must live the motto of USUM: evolve, endure, and explore; the weight of the entire world falls on their shoulders as the final hope for the human race. If they die, they fail. If they fail, we die.