Jan Willem Hendryk's legacy amounts to a staggering ?40 million - ?34 million to go to an agricultural college in Kenya's Rift Valley, and the remaining ?6 million to be divided equally between his only surviving descendants: Dirk, a South African, and Henry, a young drop-out living in California. But a number of suspicious circumstances emerge, including a clause in the will stating that Dirk must spend one month of every year in Kenya. What seems at first a simple matter of greed gradually assumes sinister proportions.

During the 1930s at Oxford, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams--remarkable friends, writers, and scholars--met regularly to discuss philosophy and literature and to read aloud from their own works in progress. Calling themselves the Inklings, their circle grew. It was in this company that such classics as The Lord of the Rings, The Screwtape Letters, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe first found an audience. Author Humphrey Carpenter was born in Oxford and was acquainted with Tolkien, Hugo Dyson, and several other Inklings. In this remarkable reconstruction of their meetings and momentous friendships, Carpenter brings to life those warm and enchanting evenings in Lewis' rooms at Magdalen College, when their imaginations ran wild. His account offers exciting insights into the influence these brilliant individuals had on each other's developing ideas and writing.

The best Christmas gift of all – love! Snowbound with Her Hero A Christmas holiday in the snowy Alps with her young son is a rare pleasure for single mum Crystal. But it means facing brooding Frenchman Raoul Broussard. With festive sleigh rides and a touch of mistletoe forcing her closer to Raoul, Crystal must decide how he makes her feel… Baby Under the Christmas Tree This Christmas Elle Austin has to go beyond the call of duty to keep rebel sportsman, Max Beasley, in check – even playing nanny to his son! Maybe it's the spirit of Christmas but Elle wishes he saw her as more than just an employee and that they could give Troy the best gift of all – a family! Single Dad’s Christmas Miracle Althea Johnson is only meant to tutor widower Clark Beaumont’s son. Not to fall in love with her boss. But, with her help, Clark’s kids begin to come alive and against the odds Althea hopes that when Christmas arrives there will be four stockings hanging over the fireplace…

Two sparkling, festive stories! Marry Me at Christmas To bridal boutique owner Madeline Krug, organising a Christmas wedding is fun – until she finds out she'll be working closely with the gorgeous brother of the bride, movie star Jonny Blaze. How will a small-town girl avoid falling for the world's sexiest guy over candlelit dinners and strolls through the snow? Especially with mistletoe hanging everywhere! A Kiss in the Snow Cupcake cook Nancee is stunned when search-and-rescue pilot Jesse strides into her kitchen. Once he’d loved her, but the last time she saw him was the night before he left her at the altar! Now he claims he’s back for good and Christmas tempts her to believe him… ‘Susan Mallery never disappoints.’ New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

Mark Haddon has written a number of successful picture books with HarperCollins, including Sea of Tranquility, illustrated by Christian Birmingham, and is best known for his novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. He lives in Oxford with his wife and two sons.

Kelly Clarkson is a Grammy award winning musician who hit the main stage as the first ever American Idol. Fourteen years, several awards, and multiple platinum hits later, Kelly is still making great music. She lives in Nashville, TN with her husband and daughter, River Rose.

The final instalment in this inspiring series about dancing, friendship and following your dreams. From best-loved author Jean Ure, whose books are described by Jacqueline Wilson as “funny, funky, feisty – and fantastic reads!”

Now a major motion picture! Enter the world of the owls and meet the heroes who keep it safe… Born in the forest of the barn owls, Soren loves life’s little pleasures, like the feel of a centipede pattering down his throat. But evil lurks in the owl world, and threatens to change the course of Soren’s life forever. One terrifying night the strangers come. They capture Soren and fly him to a deep canyon, where the destruction of all owls is being planned. Now Soren will have to do something he has never done before: he will have to fly…

The second story in a new series about dancing, friendship and following your dreams from best-loved author Jean Ure, whose books are described by Jacqueline Wilson as “funny, funky, feisty - and fantastic reads!” Maddy is delighted when she and her friends are accepted to the prestigious City Ballet School – it feels like one step closer to their dream of becoming professional dancers. But the school brings a whole new set of challenges – and soon Maddy finds herself tested like never before.

Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City in 1983. She is the author of the novels Faces in the Crowd and The Story of My Teeth, and of a collection of essays called Sidewalks. Her work has been published in magazines and newspapers such as Letras Libres, the New York Times, the New Yorker, Freeman’s, El Pais and Harper’s and she is published in fifteen languages. She is currently professor of Romance Language and Literature at Hofstra University and lives in New York City.

Michael Bond was born in Newbury, Berkshire on 13 January 1926 and educated at Presentation College, Reading. He served in the Royal Air Force and the British Army before working as a cameraman for BBC TV for 19 years. In 2015, Michael was awarded a CBE for his services to children’s literature, to add to the OBE he received in 1997. Michael died in 2017, leaving behind one of the great literary legacies of our time.

Jane O'Connor has always had a secret fondness for froufrou. An editor at a major publishing house, she has written more than thirty books for children. She lives with her family in the glamour capital of the world – New York City. Robin Preiss Glasser, who habitually sports glasses and jeans, discovered her "inner Nancy" while illustrating this book. "Wearing lace-trimmed socks helps me draw better," she says. She has illustrated many books and lives in Southern California with her family and tiara collection.

Michael Bond was born in Newbury, Berkshire on 13 January 1926 and educated at Presentation College, Reading. He served in the Royal Air Force and the British Army before working as a cameraman for BBC TV for 19 years. In 2015, Michael was awarded a CBE for his services to children’s literature, to add to the OBE he received in 1997. Michael died in 2017, leaving behind one of the great literary legacies of our time.

Create reports and solve common report problems with minimal fuss. About This Book ? Use this unique book to master the basics and advanced features of Pentaho 8 Reporting. ? A book showing developers and analysts with IT skills how to create and use the best possible reports using the Pentaho platform. ? Written with a very practical approach: full of tutorials and practical examples (source code included). Who This Book Is For This book is written for two types of professionals and students: Information Technologists with a basic knowledge of Databases and Java Developers with medium seniority. Developers will be interested to discover how to embed reports in a third-party Java application. What You Will Learn ? The basics of Pentaho Reporting (Designer and SDK) and its initial setup. ? Develop the most attractive reports on top of a wide range of data sources. ? Perform detailed customization of layout, parameterization, internationalization, behaviors, and more for your custom reports developed with Pentaho Reporting. ? Integrate Pentaho reports into third-party Java application with full control over interactions, layout, and behavior in general. ? Use Pentaho reports in the other components of the Pentaho Suite (BA Platform and PDI). In Detail This hands-on tutorial, filled with exercises and examples, introduces the reader to a variety of concepts within Pentaho Reporting. With screenshots that show you how reports look at design time as well as how they should look when rendered as PDF, Excel, HTML, Text, Rich-Text-File, XML, and CSV, this book also contains complete example source code that you can copy and paste into your environment to get up-and-running quickly. Updated to cover the features of Pentaho 8, this book will teach you everything you need to know to build fast, efficient reports using Pentaho. If your interest lies in the technical details of creating reports and you want to see how to solve common reporting problems with a minimum of fuss, this is the book for you. Style and approach A step-by-step guide covering technical topics relating to environments, best practices, and source code, to enable the reader to assemble the best reports and use them in existing Java applications.

Harness the power of Dynamics 365 Operations and discover all you need to implement it About This Book ? Master all the necessary tools and resources to evaluate Dynamics 365 for Operations, implement it, and proactively maintain it. ? Troubleshoot your problems effectively with your Dynamics 365 partner ? Learn about architecture, deployment choices, integration, configuration and data migration, development, testing, reporting and BI, support, upgrading, and more. Who This Book Is For This book is for technology leaders, project managers solution architects, and consultants who are planning to implement, are in the process of implementing, or are currently upgrading to Dynamics 365 for Operations. This book will help you effectively learn and implement Dynamics 365 for Operations. What You Will Learn ? Learn about Microsoft Dynamics 365, it's offerings, plans and details of Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition ? Understand the methodology and the tool, architecture, and deployment options ? Effectively plan and manage configurations and data migration, functional design, and technical design ? Understand integration frameworks, development concepts, best practices, and recommendations while developing new solutions ? Learn how to leverage intelligence and analytics through Power BI, machine learning, IOT, and Cortana intelligence ? Master testing, training, going live, upgrading, and how to get support during and after the implementation In Detail Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition, is a modern, cloud-first, mobile-first, ERP solution suitable for medium and large enterprise customers. This book will guide you through the entire life cycle of a implementation, helping you avoid common pitfalls while increasing your efficiency and effectiveness at every stage of the project. Starting with the foundations, the book introduces the Microsoft Dynamics 365 offerings, plans, and products. You will be taken through the various methodologies, architectures, and deployments so you can select, implement, and maintain Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition. You will delve in-depth into the various phases of implementation: project management, analysis, configuration, data migration, design, development, using Power BI, machine learning, Cortana analytics for intelligence, testing, training, and finally deployment, support cycles, and upgrading. This book focuses on providing you with information about the product and the various concepts and tools, along with real-life examples from the field and guidance that will empower you to execute and implement Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition. Style and approach This book is a step-by-step guide focusing on implementing Dynamics 365 Operations solutions for your organization.

Plan, design, and deploy System Center Configuration Manager 1706 like never before, regardless of how complex your infrastructure is About This Book ? The most up-to-date resource on deploying or migrating to System Center Configuration Manager 1706 within your IT infrastructure ? Plan, design, and deploy ConfigMgr 1706 with ease, both on primary and multiple-hierarchy sites ? Master the new features of ConfigMgr 1706, including Windows 10 support Who This Book Is For If you are a system engineer or an administrator planning to deploy Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 1706, then this book is for you. This book will also benefit system administrators who are responsible for designing and deploying one or more System CenterConfiguration Manager 1706 sites in their new or existing systems. What You Will Learn ? Install ConfigMgr servers and the necessary roles ? Design and scale ConfigMgr environments ? Configure and administrate essential ConfigMgr roles and features ? Create software packages using .msi and .exe files ? Deliver detailed reports with an automatic patching process ? Apply proper hardening on your deployment and secure workstations ? Deploy operating systems and updates leveraging ConfigMgr mechanisms ? Create high-availability components using the built-in mechanism for backup and recovery In Detail It becomes important to plan, design, and deploy configurations when administrators know that Configuration Manager interacts with a number of infrastructure components such as Active Directory Domain Services, network protocols, Windows Server services, and so on. Via real-world-world deployment scenarios, this book will help you implement a single primary site or multiples sites. You will be able to efficiently plan and deploy a multiple-site hierarchy such as central administration site. Next, you will learn various methods to plan and deploy Configuration Manager clients, secure them and make the most of new features offered through ConfigMgr 1706 like compliance, deploying updates operating systems to the endpoints. Then, this book will show you how to install, configure, and run SQL reports to extract information. Lastly, you will also learn how to create and manage users access in an ConfigMgr environment By the end of this book, you will have learned to use the built-in mechanism to back up and restore data and also design maintenance plan. Style and approach This step-by-step guide teaches you cool ways to plan, deploy, and configure ConfigMgr 1706. This tutorial, which complements the release of ConfigMgr 1706 with a refreshing new approach and expert guidance, will teach you everything you need to know about the essentials of server.

Over 80 recipes to help you breeze through your data analysis projects using R About This Book ? Analyse your data using the popular R packages like ggplot2 with ready-to-use and customizable recipes ? Find meaningful insights from your data and generate dynamic reports ? A practical guide to help you put your data analysis skills in R to practical use Who This Book Is For This book is for data scientists, analysts and even enthusiasts who want to learn and implement the various data analysis techniques using R in a practical way. Those looking for quick, handy solutions to common tasks and challenges in data analysis will find this book to be very useful. Basic knowledge of statistics and R programming is assumed. What You Will Learn ? Acquire, format and visualize your data using R ? Using R to perform an Exploratory data analysis ? Introduction to machine learning algorithms such as classification and regression ? Get started with social network analysis ? Generate dynamic reporting with Shiny ? Get started with geospatial analysis ? Handling large data with R using Spark and MongoDB ? Build Recommendation system- Collaborative Filtering, Content based and Hybrid ? Learn real world dataset examples- Fraud Detection and Image Recognition In Detail Data analytics with R has emerged as a very important focus for organizations of all kinds. R enables even those with only an intuitive grasp of the underlying concepts, without a deep mathematical background, to unleash powerful and detailed examinations of their data. This book will show you how you can put your data analysis skills in R to practical use, with recipes catering to the basic as well as advanced data analysis tasks. Right from acquiring your data and preparing it for analysis to the more complex data analysis techniques, the book will show you how you can implement each technique in the best possible manner. You will also visualize your data using the popular R packages like ggplot2 and gain hidden insights from it. Starting with implementing the basic data analysis concepts like handling your data to creating basic plots, you will master the more advanced data analysis techniques like performing cluster analysis, and generating effective analysis reports and visualizations. Throughout the book, you will get to know the common problems and obstacles you might encounter while implementing each of the data analysis techniques in R, with ways to overcoming them in the easiest possible way. By the end of this book, you will have all the knowledge you need to become an expert in data analysis with R, and put your skills to test in real-world scenarios. Style and Approach ? Hands-on recipes to walk through data science challenges using R ? Your one-stop solution for common and not-so-common pain points while performing real-world problems to execute a series of tasks. ? Addressing your common and not-so-common pain points, this is a book that you must have on the shelf

Simplify machine learning model implementations with Spark About This Book ? Solve the day-to-day problems of data science with Spark ? This unique cookbook consists of exciting and intuitive numerical recipes ? Optimize your work by acquiring, cleaning, analyzing, predicting, and visualizing your data Who This Book Is For This book is for Scala developers with a fairly good exposure to and understanding of machine learning techniques, but lack practical implementations with Spark. A solid knowledge of machine learning algorithms is assumed, as well as hands-on experience of implementing ML algorithms with Scala. However, you do not need to be acquainted with the Spark ML libraries and ecosystem. What You Will Learn ? Get to know how Scala and Spark go hand-in-hand for developers when developing ML systems with Spark ? Build a recommendation engine that scales with Spark ? Find out how to build unsupervised clustering systems to classify data in Spark ? Build machine learning systems with the Decision Tree and Ensemble models in Spark ? Deal with the curse of high-dimensionality in big data using Spark ? Implement Text analytics for Search Engines in Spark ? Streaming Machine Learning System implementation using Spark In Detail Machine learning aims to extract knowledge from data, relying on fundamental concepts in computer science, statistics, probability, and optimization. Learning about algorithms enables a wide range of applications, from everyday tasks such as product recommendations and spam filtering to cutting edge applications such as self-driving cars and personalized medicine. You will gain hands-on experience of applying these principles using Apache Spark, a resilient cluster computing system well suited for large-scale machine learning tasks. This book begins with a quick overview of setting up the necessary IDEs to facilitate the execution of code examples that will be covered in various chapters. It also highlights some key issues developers face while working with machine learning algorithms on the Spark platform. We progress by uncovering the various Spark APIs and the implementation of ML algorithms with developing classification systems, recommendation engines, text analytics, clustering, and learning systems. Toward the final chapters, we’ll focus on building high-end applications and explain various unsupervised methodologies and challenges to tackle when implementing with big data ML systems. Style and approach This book is packed with intuitive recipes supported with line-by-line explanations to help you understand how to optimize your work flow and resolve problems when working with complex data modeling tasks and predictive algorithms. This is a valuable resource for data scientists and those working on large scale data projects.

Leverage Scala and Machine Learning to study and construct systems that can learn from data About This Book ? Explore a broad variety of data processing, machine learning, and genetic algorithms through diagrams, mathematical formulation, and updated source code in Scala ? Take your expertise in Scala programming to the next level by creating and customizing AI applications ? Experiment with different techniques and evaluate their benefits and limitations using real-world applications in a tutorial style Who This Book Is For If you’re a data scientist or a data analyst with a fundamental knowledge of Scala who wants to learn and implement various Machine learning techniques, this book is for you. All you need is a good understanding of the Scala programming language, a basic knowledge of statistics, a keen interest in Big Data processing, and this book! What You Will Learn ? Build dynamic workflows for scientific computing ? Leverage open source libraries to extract patterns from time series ? Write your own classification, clustering, or evolutionary algorithm ? Perform relative performance tuning and evaluation of Spark ? Master probabilistic models for sequential data ? Experiment with advanced techniques such as regularization and kernelization ? Dive into neural networks and some deep learning architecture ? Apply some basic multiarm-bandit algorithms ? Solve big data problems with Scala parallel collections, Akka actors, and Apache Spark clusters ? Apply key learning strategies to a technical analysis of financial markets In Detail The discovery of information through data clustering and classification is becoming a key differentiator for competitive organizations. Machine learning applications are everywhere, from self-driving cars, engineering design, logistics, manufacturing, and trading strategies, to detection of genetic anomalies. The book is your one stop guide that introduces you to the functional capabilities of the Scala programming language that are critical to the creation of machine learning algorithms such as dependency injection and implicits. You start by learning data preprocessing and filtering techniques. Following this, you'll move on to unsupervised learning techniques such as clustering and dimension reduction, followed by probabilistic graphical models such as Na?ve Bayes, hidden Markov models and Monte Carlo inference. Further, it covers the discriminative algorithms such as linear, logistic regression with regularization, kernelization, support vector machines, neural networks, and deep learning. You’ll move on to evolutionary computing, multibandit algorithms, and reinforcement learning. Finally, the book includes a comprehensive overview of parallel computing in Scala and Akka followed by a de*ion of Apache Spark and its ML library. With updated codes based on the latest version of Scala and comprehensive examples, this book will ensure that you have more than just a solid fundamental knowledge in machine learning with Scala. Style and approach This book is designed as a tutorial with hands-on exercises using technical analysis of financial markets and corporate data. The approach of each chapter is such that it allows you to understand key concepts easily.

Build simple, maintainable, and easy to deploy machine learning applications. About This Book ? Build simple, but powerful, machine learning applications that leverage Go’s standard library along with popular Go packages. ? Learn the statistics, algorithms, and techniques needed to successfully implement machine learning in Go ? Understand when and how to integrate certain types of machine learning model in Go applications. Who This Book Is For This book is for Go developers who are familiar with the Go syntax and can develop, build, and run basic Go programs. If you want to explore the field of machine learning and you love Go, then this book is for you! Machine Learning with Go will give readers the practical skills to perform the most common machine learning tasks with Go. Familiarity with some statistics and math topics is necessary. What You Will Learn ? Learn about data gathering, organization, parsing, and cleaning. ? Explore matrices, linear algebra, statistics, and probability. ? See how to evaluate and validate models. ? Look at regression, classification, clustering. ? Learn about neural networks and deep learning ? Utilize times series models and anomaly detection. ? Get to grip with techniques for deploying and distributing analyses and models. ? Optimize machine learning workflow techniques In Detail The mission of this book is to turn readers into productive, innovative data analysts who leverage Go to build robust and valuable applications. To this end, the book clearly introduces the technical aspects of building predictive models in Go, but it also helps the reader understand how machine learning workflows are being applied in real-world scenarios. Machine Learning with Go shows readers how to be productive in machine learning while also producing applications that maintain a high level of integrity. It also gives readers patterns to overcome challenges that are often encountered when trying to integrate machine learning in an engineering organization. The readers will begin by gaining a solid understanding of how to gather, organize, and parse real-work data from a variety of sources. Readers will then develop a solid statistical toolkit that will allow them to quickly understand gain intuition about the content of a dataset. Finally, the readers will gain hands-on experience implementing essential machine learning techniques (regression, classification, clustering, and so on) with the relevant Go packages. Finally, the reader will have a solid machine learning mindset and a powerful Go toolkit of techniques, packages, and example implementations. Style and approach This book connects the fundamental, theoretical concepts behind Machine Learning to practical implementations using the Go programming language.

Learn the techniques used by the most successful IT people in the world. About This Book ? Get real-life case studies for different IT roles, developers, testers, analysts, project managers, DBAs ? Identify with your IT scenarios and take the right decision to move up in your career ? Improve your EQ and face any difficult scenario confidently and effectively Who This Book Is For This book is for professionals across the IT domain who work as developers, administrators, architects, administrators system analysts, and so on, who want to create a better working environment around them by improving their own emotional intelligence. This book assumes that you are a beginner to emotional intelligence and will help you understand the basic concepts before helping you with real life scenarios. What You Will Learn ? Improve your observation skills to understand people better ? Know how to identify what motivates you and those around you ? Develop strategies for working more effectively with others ? Increase your capacity to influence people and improve your communication skills ? Understand how to successfully complete tasks through other people ? Discover how to control the emotional content of your decision-making In Detail This book will help you discover your emotional quotient (EQ) through practices and techniques that are used by the most successful IT people in the world. It will make you familiar with the core skills of Emotional Intelligence, such as understanding the role that emotions play in life, especially in the workplace. You will learn to identify the factors that make your behavior consistent, not just to other employees, but to yourself. This includes recognizing, harnessing, predicting, fostering, valuing, soothing, increasing, decreasing, managing, shifting, influencing or turning around emotions and integrating accurate emotional information into decision-making, reasoning, problem solving, etc., because, emotions run business in a way that spreadsheets and logic cannot. When a deadline lurks, you’ll know the steps you need to take to keep calm and composed. You’ll find out how to meet the deadline, and not get bogged down by stress. We’ll explain these factors and techniques through real-life examples faced by IT employees and you’ll learn using the choices that they made. This book will give you a detailed analysis of the events and behavioral pattern of the employees during that time. This will help you improve your own EQ to the extent that you don’t just survive, but thrive in a competitive IT industry. Style and approach You will be taken through real-life events faced by IT employees in different scenarios. These real-world cases are analyzed along with the response of the employees, which will help you to develop your own emotion intelligence quotient and face any difficult scenario confidently and effectively.