Lydia Ackland was nearly blind when she fell downstairs and was killed. Her grandchildren have always accepted the official verdict – accident. Besides, they have their own problems: beautiful Kate is ending a love-affair; her brother Daniel is painfully crippled. But then that letter comes to light. Only days before her death, somebody wrote and warned their grandmother that she was ‘opening a disastrous Pandora’s Box’ and should ‘let sleeping, and perhaps dangerous, dogs lie’. The letter goads Kate and Daniel into asking lots of questions. First, who wrote it? And why does the answer, once discovered, point to their arrogant Uncle Mark, who, with his ambitious wife Helen, has inherited Longwater, the vast family estate, and the vast fortune that goes with it. Why were Mark and Helen banished from England in their youth and what are the secrets behind their long European exile? Kate follows their footsteps through Italy and Corsica, while Daniel continues to ask questions in England. Within days, both their lives have been threatened, confirming their suspicions that all is not a it seems – and perhaps never has been…

Three of Jean Ure’s stories in one bumper volume of classic girly fiction with ‘Sugar and Spice’, ‘Secret Meeting’ and ‘Is Anybody There’? ‘Sugar and Spice’: Geeky Ruth Spicer is shocked when super-cool Shayanne Sugar wants to be her friend. ‘Secret Meeting’: Annie's arranged the coolest birthday present for her best friend, Megan. ‘Is Anybody There?’: The friendship of three girls is tested when one of them accepts a lift with a stranger. These three classic girl’s stories combine vivid characters with real life problems and a touch of humour, making this essential reading for 10 – 12 year old girls.

This is the true story of C.S. Lewis – one of the greatest writers of the 20th-century – whose books for children and adults have become much loved classics. Part of the story of C.S. Lewis has been made famous through the film ‘Shadowlands’. Here this fascinating man’s entire life story is told by those who knew him personally. C.S. Lewis was born in Belfast in 1898 and was sent to England for a public school education with his elder brother, Warren. Lewis exhibited a genius for imagination and perception from his earliest years. Brought up in a Christian household, Lewis lost his faith in his teenage years but was to regain it, with reluctance, as a fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford. His faith subsequently influenced his writings. He became a vigorous champion of the Christian faith through classics such as ‘Mere Christianity’ and through his BBC broadcasts. His ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ became children’s classics and he was deluged with correspondence from his young readers. In his latter years he unexpectedly fell deeply in love with a divorced American, Joy Greshem, and married her, only to suffer the devastation of her death a few years later. C.S. Lewis died in 1963 at his home in Oxford. During his lifetime C.S. Lewis suggested to his friend, Roger Lancelyn Green, who was a fellow English scholar, that he would undertake his biography one day. After Lewis’s death in 1963 Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper were approached by several of Lewis’s friends to write the biography. Warren Lewis, brother to Jack, contributed a great deal to the writing. The authors had at their disposal a vast collection of letters and diaries, as well as the recollections of many surviving family members and friends. Walter Hooper has enhanced the original text with additional material to provide a new, expanded edition which all C.S. Lewis fans will be keen to own.

Who is Paul Noble?Paul Noble is a genius, yet he still left school unable to speak a language – he found that the traditional learning methods left him feeling ‘confused, incapable and unable to really say anything’. Determined that there must be a better way to learn, Paul spent years devising his own unique method of learning languages which cuts out all of the grammar, all of the rote learning, and all of the stress. He began using his method to teach in his Language Institute and, hundreds of students later, he prides himself on never having had a student fail.

SHIELDING HIS FAMILY Defending an accused kidnapper could get attorney Josie Bishop killed—but facing the father of her child for the first time in seven years could destroy her heart. Yet when her ex-fiancé, former SEAL Edward “Blade” Harding, shows up at her door ready to offer his protection, she can’t deny him. Nor can she deny him the chance to know their son. When shots are fired at Josie’s home and a brick is thrown through her window on which a scrawled note says “Drop the case or pay the price,” Blade is more determined than ever to protect his newfound family at all costs. But can he overcome his past mistakes in order to make sure they survive their present…and possibly have a future together? Navy SEAL Defenders: Bound by honor and dedicated to protection.

Meet the FBI special agents of the elite Classified K-9 Unit in this exciting new novella! Classified K-9 Unit: These FBI agents solve the toughest cases with the help of their brave canine partners FBI intern Zara Fielding and her K-9 partner, Radar, stumble across a robbery gone wrong and put themselves in the criminals’ crosshairs. Her childhood friend FBI computer guru Dylan O’Leary works for the secretive FBI unit she longs to join, and he vows not to let anything happen to her. As they work to stay one step ahead of the bad guys, new feelings ignite. When she goes missing, it’s only Dylan—and Radar—who can track her down. Will they arrive in time to save her and the future she and Dylan have started dreaming about? Look for more books in the Classified K-9 Unit series from Love Inspired Suspense.

Under the Spy’s Protection When Gemma Lyfeld inadvertently interrupts a dangerous smuggling operation in her English village, she’s rescued by a mysterious Scottish spy. Now with criminals after her and her hopes for an expected marriage proposal recently dashed, she will make her society debut in London. But not without the man tasked with protecting her… Covert government agent Tavin Knox must keep Gemma safe from the criminals who think she can identify them—a mission he never wanted. But as he escorts her and her rascally nephews around London, the lovely English lass proves braver than he ever imagined. Suddenly, the spy who works alone has one season to become the family man he never dreamed he’d be.

A Second-Chance Family When Buck Armstrong rescues Gina Patterson and her baby from a dark country road outside of town, he intends to keep his distance. Gina and little Bobby remind the handsome veteran too much of all he’s lost. The vulnerable single mom seems equally wary of getting involved. But things change once Gina and her son settle into his sister’s boarding house. Being with Gina and Bobby makes Buck question his plans to leave town for a fresh start. Suddenly, he has dreams of forging a new family, even though it will mean risking his heart. But can he escape his past for a chance at a happy future? Rescue River: Making forever families

Small-Town Daddy Jackson Daughtry’s jobs as a paramedic and part-owner of a local café keep him busy—but the single dad’s number one priority is raising his little girl with love and small-town values. And when his business partner’s hot-shot lawyer niece comes to town, planning to disrupt their lives by moving her aunt away, Jackson has to set Melanie Harper straight. When circumstances forces them to work side-by-side in the coffee shop, Jackson slowly discovers what put the sadness in Melanie’s pretty brown eyes. Now, it’ll take all his faith—and a hopeful five year old—to show the city gal that she’s already home.

Saved by the Lawman by Margaret Daley As an unknown assailant attempts to kidnap family court judge Kate Forster’s infant son, police officer Chase Walker thwarts the attack—and vows to keep the pair safe. But who will protect the ex-marine’s heart when the widowed mother and her little boy make him long for a permanent spot in their family? Saved by the SEAL by Susan Sleeman The tragedy that killed Bree Hatfield’s best friends—and left her with custody of their young daughter—has been ruled an accident. But Bree knows it was murder. Scared and alone, she turns to her ex-boyfriend, Navy SEAL Clint Reed, who’ll risk everything to protect baby Ella and the woman he never stopped loving.

AMISH COUNTRY DANGER Returning to her Amish hometown to open a bed and breakfast, Heather Miller thinks she’s finally safe from her violent ex-husband—until he escapes from prison. Now with her ex determined to hurt her, she must rely on US Marshal Zachary Walker for safety. For Zach, this mission isn’t only his duty, it’s personal. The escaped convict killed his sister, and Heather was instrumental in putting the man behind bars. But with Zach’s natural protective instincts toward Heather turning into something deeper, he must keep his emotional distance. He can’t be distracted, because the danger that lies in wait is as evil as it is unexpected…and a lapse in judgement could prove deadly.

The brave owls of Ga'Hoole are back in their second mythic adventure as they strive to preserve owldom from the evil that lurks around them. Join the owls in their quest for the Great Ga'Hoole Tree, the legendary place where ordinary owls are transformed into the heroes that guard the owl kingdom. Out of the darkness a hero will rise… It began as a dream. A quest for the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, a mythic place where each night an order of owls rises to perform noble deeds. There Soren, Gylfie, Twilight and Digger hope to find inspiration to fight the evil that dwells in the owl kingdom. The journey is long and arduous for Soren, Gylife, Twilight and Digger. When they finally arrive, they realize that the journey has barely started and that greater challenges lay ahead. If they succeed in following in the footsteps of their leaders, they will soon become true Ga'Hoolian owls– honest, brave, true and wise.

本专著为“大连外国语大学日本语学院博士文库丛书”、2013年辽宁省高等学校杰出青年学者成长计划（5WJQ2013021）、大连外国语大学科研基金项目“日语自称词的历时考察与语用学研究”研究成果之一。

本书共有10大主题，包含从校园到职场，从传统到现代的方方面面，80篇文章均为韩国现代社会的真实写照，学习韩语的同时带你一览真实的韩国。 全书采用韩汉对照形式，韩文地道规范，译文准确流畅，并用双语录制，扫书中二维码即可收听。 每一篇文章均配有“核心词汇”和“重语法”，帮助大家在阅读的同时积累更多韩语知识，轻松迎战韩语TOPIK中高级。

Manage state in Angular to write high performing web apps by combining the power of Flux, RxJS, and NgRx About This Book ? Learn what makes an excellent Angular application architecture ? Use Redux to write performant, consistent Angular applications ? Incorporate Reactive Programming principles and RxJS to make it easier to develop, test, and debug your Angular applications Who This Book Is For If you have been developing Angular applications and want to dive deeper into the Angular architecture with Redux, RxJS, and NgRx to write robust web apps, then this book is for you. What You Will Learn ? Understand the one-way data flow and Flux pattern ? Work with functional programming and asynchronous data streams ? Figure out how RxJS can help us address the flaws in promises ? Set up different versions of cascading calls ? Explore advanced operators ? Get familiar with the Redux pattern and its principles ? Test and debug different features of your application ? Build your own lightweight app using Flux, Redux, and NgRx In Detail Managing the state of large-scale web applications is a highly challenging task with the need to align different components, backends, and web workers harmoniously. When it comes to Angular, you can use NgRx, which combines the simplicity of Redux with the reactive programming power of RxJS to build your application architecture, making your code elegant and easy to reason about, debug, and test. In this book, we start by looking at the different ways of architecting Angular applications and some of the patterns that are involved in it. This will be followed by a discussion on one-way data flow, the Flux pattern, and the origin of Redux. The book introduces you to declarative programming or, more precisely, functional programming and talks about its advantages. We then move on to the reactive programming paradigm. Reactive programming is a concept heavily used in Angular and is at the core of NgRx. Later, we look at RxJS, as a library and master it. We thoroughly describe how Redux works and how to implement it from scratch. The two last chapters of the book cover everything NgRx has to offer in terms of core functionality and supporting libraries, including how to build a micro implementation of NgRx. This book will empower you to not only use Redux and NgRx to the fullest, but also feel confident in building your own version, should you need it. Style and approach This book covers everything there is to know to get well-acquainted with Angular without bogging you down. Everything is neatly laid out under clear headings for quick consultation, giving you the information required to understand a concept immediately.

Design RPA solutions to perform a wide range of transactional tasks with minimal cost and maximum ROI About This Book ? A beginner's guide to learn Robotic Process Automation and its impact on the modern world ? Design, test, and perform enterprise automation task with UiPath ? Create Automation apps and deploy them to all the computers in your department. Who This Book Is For If you would like to pursue a career in Robotic Process Automation or improve the efficiency of your businesses by automating common tasks, then this book is perfect for you. Prior programming knowledge of either Visual Basic or C# will be useful. What You Will Learn ? Understand Robotic Process Automation technology ? Learn UiPath programming techniques to deploy robot configurations ? Explore various data extraction techniques ? Learn about integrations with various popular applications such as SAP and MS Office ? Debug a programmed robot including logging and exception handling ? Maintain code version and source control ? Deploy and control Bots with UiPath Orchestrator In Detail Robotic Process Automation (RPA) enables automating business processes using software robots. Software robots interpret, trigger responses, and communicate with other systems just like humans do. Robotic processes and intelligent automation tools can help businesses improve the effectiveness of services faster and at a lower cost than current methods. This book is the perfect start to your automation journey, with a special focus on one of the most popular RPA tools: UiPath. Learning Robotic Process Automation takes you on a journey from understanding the basics of RPA to advanced implementation techniques. You will become oriented in the UiPath interface and learn about its workflow. Once you are familiar with the environment, we will get hands-on with automating different applications such as Excel, SAP, Windows and web applications, screen and web scraping, working with user events, as well as understanding exceptions and debugging. By the end of the book, you'll not only be able to build your first software bot, but also you'll wire it to perform various automation tasks with the help of best practices for bot deployment. Style and approach This book will help you kick-start your automation journey with a special focus on one of the most popular RPA tools: UiPath.

Enhance your Kotlin programming skills by building 3 real-world applications About This Book ? Build three full-fledged, engaging applications from scratch and learn to deploy them ? Enhance your app development and programming activities with Kotlin’s powerful and intuitive tools and utilities. ? Experience the gentle learning curve, expressiveness, and intuitiveness of Kotlin, as you develop your own applications Who This Book Is For This book is for those who are new to Kotlin or are familiar with the basics, having dabbled with Java until now. Basic programming knowledge is mandatory. What You Will Learn ? Learn the building blocks of the Kotlin programming language ? Develop powerful RESTful microservices for Android applications ? Create reactive Android applications efficiently ? Implement an MVC architecture pattern and dependency management using Kotlin ? Centralize, transform, and stash data with Logstash ? Secure applications using Spring Security ? Deploy Kotlin microservices to AWS and Android applications to the Play Store In Detail Kotlin greatly reduces the verbosity of source code. With Google having announced their support for Kotlin as a first-class language for writing Android apps, now's the time learn how to create apps from scratch with Kotlin Kotlin Programming By Example takes you through the building blocks of Kotlin, such as functions and classes. You’ll explore various features of Kotlin by building three applications of varying complexity. For a quick start to Android development, we look at building a classic game, Tetris, and elaborate on object-oriented programming in Kotlin. Our next application will be a messenger app, a level up in terms of complexity. Before moving onto the third app, we take a look at data persistent methods, helping us learn about the storage and retrieval of useful applications. Our final app is a place reviewer: a web application that will make use of the Google Maps API and Place Picker. By the end of this book, you will have gained experience of of creating and deploying Android applications using Kotlin. Style and approach Here we will build three exciting projects in Kotlin which will demonstrate how to effectively use Kotlin language constructs

Create microservices using Java EE technologies using WildFly Swarm,deploy them in the OpenShift cloud, make them resilient to network failures using Hystrix, configure continuous integration using Jenkins, and security using Keycloak. About This Book ? Create functional microservices with WildFly Swarm ? Use OpenShift to deploy your microservices in the cloud ? Make your application production-ready using Jenkins, Hystrix, and Keycloak Who This Book Is For If you're an experienced developer familiar with Java EE technologies and would like to learn how you can use those technologies in the cloud with WildFly and OpenShift, then this book is for you. What You Will Learn ? Utilize Java EE technology to develop modern cloud-enabled applications ? Easily create microservices with WildFly Swarm using proven Java EE technologies ? See the benefits of OpenShift – easy deployment of your services, out of the box scalability and healing, and integration with Continuous Integration tools ? Integrate the sample application with Jenkins’ Continuous Integration server ? Utilize Netflix OSS to connect your services and provide resilience to your application ? Provide security to your application using Keycloak In Detail The book starts by introducing you to WildFly Swarm—a tool that allows you to create runnable microservices from Java EE components. You’ll learn the basics of Swarm operation—creating a microservice containing only the parts of enterprise runtime needed in a specific case. Later, you’ll learn how to configure and test those services. In order to deploy our services in the cloud, we’ll use OpenShift. You’ll get to know basic information on its architecture, features, and relationship to Docker and Kubernetes. Later, you’ll learn how to deploy and configure your services to run in the OpenShift cloud. In the last part of the book, you’ll see how to make your application production-ready. You’ll find out how to configure continuous integration for your services using Jenkins, make your application resistant to network failures using Hystrix, and how to secure them using Keycloak. By the end of the book, you’ll have a fully functional example application and will have practical knowledge of Java EE cloud development that can be used as a reference in your other projects. Style and approach This example-based tutorial guides you step by step through creating an application based on well-known Java EE technologies (JAX-RS, CDI, JPA, and JSF) and modern architectural patterns.

Discover solutions to all your Tkinter and Python GUI development problems About This Book ? Integrate efficient Python GUI programming techniques with Tkinter ? Efficiently implement advanced MVC architectures in your Python GUI apps ? Solve all your problems related to Tkinter and Python GUI development Who This Book Is For This book is for Python developers who are familiar with the basics of the language syntax, data structures, and OOP. You do not need previous experience with Tkinter or other GUI development libraries. What You Will Learn ? Add widgets and handle user events ? Lay out widgets within windows using frames and the different geometry managers ? Configure widgets so that they have a customized appearance and behavior ? Improve the navigation of your apps with menus and dialogs ? Apply object-oriented programming techniques in Tkinter applications ? Use threads to achieve responsiveness and update the GUI ? Explore the capabilities of the canvas widget and the types of items that can be added to it ? Extend Tkinter applications with the TTK (themed Tkinter) module In Detail As one of the more versatile programming languages, Python is well-known for its batteries-included philosophy, which includes a rich set of modules in its standard library; Tkinter is the library included for building desktop applications. Due to this, Tkinter is a common choice for rapid GUI development, and more complex applications can benefit from the full capabilities of this library. This book covers all of your Tkinter and Python GUI development problems and solutions. Tkinter GUI Application Development Cookbook starts with an overview of Tkinter classes and at the same time provides recipes for basic topics, such as layout patterns and event handling. Next, we cover how to develop common GUI patterns, such as entering and saving data, navigating through menus and dialogs, and performing long-running actions in the background. You will then make your apps leverage network resources effectively, perform 2D and 3D animation-related tasks, create 3D objects, and perform advanced graphical operations. Finally, this book covers using the canvas and themed widgets. By the end of the book, you will have an in-depth knowledge of Tkinter classes, and will know how to use them to build efficient and rich GUI applications. Style and approach A practical recipe-based guide that will help you find solutions to all your Tkinter and Python GUI development-related problems.

This fast-paced guide will quickly enhance your skills to develop a highly scalable Cloud environment About This Book ? Efficiently build a highly scalable and reliable cloud environment for your applications with AWS ? Leverage the various AWS components and services to build a secure, reliable, and robust environment to host your applications on ? This quick-start guide will quickly enhance your skills to develop highly scalable services Who This Book Is For This book is for IT professionals and system administrators looking to design, deploy, and manage your applications and services on the AWS cloud platform. It’s also ideal for developers looking to build highly scalable cloud-based services. A basic understanding of AWS would be beneficial. What You Will Learn ? Find out about IAM to access AWS services securely ? Explore EC2 (virtual server) and scale up/down your application based on heavy traffic ? Learn about unlimited data storage service S3 and host a static website within minutes ? Get to grips with Relational Databases and NoSQL databases under the AWS ecosystem ? Understand the caching mechanism ? Get to know about notifications service and monitor AWS services ? Secure and troubleshoot your AWS architecture In Detail AWS is at the forefront of Cloud Computing today. Businesses are adopting AWS Cloud because of its reliability, versatility, and flexible design. The main focus of this book is teaching you how to build and manage highly reliable and scalable applications and services on AWS. It will provide you with all the necessary skills to design, deploy, and manage your applications and services on the AWS cloud platform. We’ll start by exploring Amazon S3, EC2, and so on to get you well-versed with core Amazon services. Moving on, we’ll teach you how to design and deploy highly scalable and optimized workloads. You’ll also discover easy-to-follow, hands-on steps, tips, and recommendations throughout the book and get to know essential security and troubleshooting concepts. By the end of the book, you’ll be able to create a highly secure, fault tolerant, and scalable environment for your applications to run on. Style and approach This book is all about fast and intensive learning. That means we don’t waste time helping you get started. The new features provided by AWS resources are being covered with highly-effective examples to develop new things, demonstrating different ways to create and use the AWS resources efficiently.

Delve into neural networks, implement deep learning algorithms, and explore layers of data abstraction with the help of TensorFlow v1.7. About This Book ? Learn how to implement advanced techniques in deep learning with Google's brainchild, TensorFlow v1.7 ? Explore deep neural networks and layers of data abstraction with the help of this comprehensive guide ? Gain real-world contextualization through some deep learning problems concerning research and application Who This Book Is For The book is for people interested in machine learning and machine intelligence. A rudimentary level of programming in one language is assumed, as is a basic familiarity with computer science techniques and technologies, including a basic awareness of computer hardware and algorithms. Some competence in mathematics is needed to the level of elementary linear algebra and calculus. What You Will Learn ? Apply deep machine intelligence and GPU computing with TensorFlow v1.7 ? Access public datasets and use TensorFlow to load, process, and transform the data ? Discover how to use the high-level TensorFlow API to build more powerful applications ? Use deep learning for scalable object detection and mobile computing ? Train machines quickly to learn from data by exploring reinforcement learning techniques ? Explore active areas of deep learning research and applications In Detail Deep learning is a branch of machine learning algorithms based on learning multiple levels of abstraction. Neural networks, which are at the core of deep learning, are being used in predictive analytics, computer vision, natural language processing, time series forecasting, and to perform a myriad of other complex tasks. This book is conceived for developers, data analysts, machine learning practitioners and deep learning enthusiasts who want to build powerful, robust, and accurate predictive models with the power of TensorFlow v1.7, combined with other open source Python libraries. Throughout the book, you’ll learn how to develop deep learning applications for machine learning systems using Feedforward Neural Networks, Convolutional Neural Networks, Recurrent Neural Networks, Autoencoders, and Factorization Machines. Discover how to attain deep learning programming on GPU in a distributed way. You'll come away with an in-depth knowledge of machine learning techniques and the skills to apply them to real-world projects. Style and approach This step-by-step guide explores common, and not so common, deep neural networks, and shows how they can be exploited in the real world with complex raw data. Benefit from practical examples, and learn how to implement different types of neural nets to build smart applications related to text, speech, and image data processing.