Showing results for "stephen j wright"

Optimization techniques are at the core of data science, including data analysis and machine learning. An understanding of basic optimization techniques and their fundamental properties provides important grounding for students, researchers, and practitioners in these areas. This text covers the fundamentals of optimization algorithms in a compact, self-contained way, focusing on the techniques most relevant to data science. An introductory chapter demonstrates that many standard problems ...

A very good officer, but a drunken dog as ever lived.Such was the Duke of Wellington’s alleged assessment of Sir Nicholas Trant. But this book provides a complete reappraisal of Trant’s career, contrasting all too vividly with Wellington’s dismissive remark.At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Trant, who had originally enlisted in the army of Louis XVI, volunteered for the Duke of Brunswick’s coalition army that fought at Valmy in 1792. Trant later served in F...

An utterly wild, debauched, romantic, and violent ride inspired by the 18th-century Irish pirate Anne Bonny, reimagined here as Amethyst "Meeks" Connell, one of the most extraordinary outlaws of any age. For readers of George Saunders, Percival Everett, and Maggie O'Farrell.“This fiercely imaginative, blood-soaked, starry-eyed, and exuberant epic will capture the dreams and nightmares of any daring reader.” (Shelf Awareness

This book focuses on ways to better manage and prevent aircraft-based homicide events while in flight using alternate technology to replace the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and/or Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) functions. While these events are infrequent, the implementation of real-time predictive maintenance allows aircraft operators to better manage both scheduled and unscheduled maintenance events. Aviation Safety and Security: Utilizing Technology to Prevent Aircraft Fata...

From an "astonishing" writer (Toni Morrison), the savagely funny story of a couple who unexpectedly come into some money in a wealth-obsessed America deranged by Mammon.A bag of money drops out of the sky, literally, into the path of a cash-starved citizen named Graveyard. He carries it home to his wife, Ambience, and they embark on the adventure of their lives, finally able to have everything they've always thought they deserved: cars, guns, games, jewels, clothes...

In Shadows of the Past, Stephen Wright explores humanity's enduring fascination with hauntings, tracing their roots in culture, history, and folklore. From eerie urban legends to the evolution of ghost stories in literature, film, and modern media, Wright examines how hauntings reflect collective fears, unresolved traumas, and the desire to connect with the past.The book delves into the emotional impact of ghostly encounters, the role of paranormal investigations, and the ...

In a post-Christian modern world, skepticism and skeptics abound. Christian belief once depended upon faith alone, but skeptics require more, insisting upon proof before belief. If believers today are to evangelize these skeptics, Christians must marshal proof of the Christian concept. This book does that. Using overlooked history and well-known Scripture, the author sets about to convince the skeptic through novel, eye-opening proof.

One of the greatest Vietnam War novels ever written, by an award-winning writer who experienced it firsthand.Deployed to Vietnam with the U.S. Army's 1069 Intelligence Group, Spec. 4 James Griffin starts out clear-eyed and hardworking, believing he can glide through the war unharmed. But the kaleidoscope of horrors he experiences gets inside him relentlessly. He gradually collapses and ends up unstrung, in step with the exploding hell around him and waiting for the...

This volume of thirteen original essays provides a timely analysis of African foreign policies in a post–Cold War environment where African marginalization from the global economy appears to be increasing. Three thematic essays give an overview of critical changes occurring in African foreign policies, and ten country-by-country case studies provide specific analyses of decisionmaking, intraregional relations, and the struggles over policy with external agencies, including the World Bank a...

A Civil War novel unlike any other: the story of a young man's journey through a nation blasted apart.Born in 1844, Liberty Fish is the descendant of both Carolina slaveholders and New York abolitionists. In hopes of reconciling the warring strands of his heritage, he escapes his home in the North -- first into the cauldron of the Civil War, and then into the even more disturbing bedlam that follows.The Amalgamation Polka showcases not only the brutality of...

If you are thinking, "What another book on the parables?" then think again! Here's a single volume that judiciously surveys parables research, sketches the significance of Jesus' parables for each of the synoptic Gospels, analyzes the importance of the parables for understanding Jesus' ministry, and discusses how these parables would have been heard in their own contexts - all of this in readable prose that is fully conversant with scholarly discussion without bogging us down in that discu...

While it is widely acknowledged that Jesus told stories, there has not been much focus on why he did so and how these stories contributed to his ministry. Stephen Wright approaches this topic afresh to analyze how considering the parables as "stories" can help our understanding of Jesus and his mission. Wright begins by looking for insights in scholarship from recent decades on the parables and the historical Jesus. He goes on to imagine how these stories would have resonated with hearers ...