Paul and Julie LeBlanc move from New Orleans to Colorado, leaving a world of troubles behind them. Settled in Denver, they achieve their dream of adopting a baby, a fondling who was left in a mall. They name their adopted daughter Lara, and as time goes by she seems to be an almost perfect child; healthy, affectionate and smart. They gradually become aware that Lara is different from other children in a number of ways, but they do not realize just how different she is. Lara and her parents...

Intelligent Image and Video Compression: Communicating Pictures, Second Edition explains the requirements, analysis, design and application of a modern video coding system. It draws on the authors' extensive academic and professional experience in this field to deliver a text that is algorithmically rigorous yet accessible, relevant to modern standards and practical. It builds on a thorough grounding in mathematical foundations and visual perception to demonstrate how modern image and vide...

Questions surrounding his parents’ deaths have haunted Noah Lamarck for almost thirty years. Now he copes with a grandfather suffering from dementia and an overwhelmed grandmother, the two people who raised him in Cape Breton. Money is tight and problems multiply. After relocating to Toronto to help his estranged wife care for their son, Noah is laid off from the Fisher Rare Book Library. Growing desperate, he seizes an unexpected lifeline. Noah and his friend, graduate student Cecelia Lin...

In order for wireless devices to function, the signals must be coded in standard ways so that the sender and the receiver can communicate. This area of video source coding is one of the key challenges in the worldwide push to deliver full video communications over wireless devices. Video Coding for Mobile Communications reviews current progress in this field and looks at how to solve some of the most important technology issues in the months and years ahead. The vision of being able to com...

This book is an in-depth, evidence-based guide to interviewing suspects with specific vulnerabilities. It provides an overview of current research, practices, and legal considerations for interviewing vulnerable suspects, incorporating guidelines regarding the identification of vulnerabilities, engaging with third parties in the interview, and training and supervision. It then goes on to cover specific vulnerabilities typically encountered in suspect populations, providing clear summaries ...

Christian Theology after Christendom: Engaging the Thought of Douglas John Hall brings together contemporary thinkers to engage and build upon Douglas John Hall’s work—and to take up his challenge to reclaim a contextual and decolonizing theology of the cross as a means to speak to the realities of life and faith today. With a focus on contemporary issues, this edited collection critically analyzes and deconstructs the centuries-old colonial triumphalism of Christian theology and the churc...

This fifth volume, edited and authored by world leading experts, gives a review of the principles, methods and techniques of important and emerging research topics and technologies in image and video compression and multimedia. With this reference source you will: - Quickly grasp a new area of research - Understand the underlying principles of a topic and its application - Ascertain how a topic relates to other areas and learn of the research issues yet to be resolved - Quick tutorial revi...

This collection of essays is dedicated to the prolific career of Paul Ricoeur. In his lifetime, Ricoeur made significant contributions to many fields, such as theology, aesthetics, narratology, linguistics, and of course, philosophy. Within philosophy alone, he engaged many currents of thoughts, always providing careful and faithful analyses of philosophers while adding his own unique perspectives. Many essays in this anthology revisit Ricoeur’s own works, carefully placing him in his phil...

Multimedia technologies are becoming more sophisticated, enabling the Internet to accommodate a rapidly growing audience with a full range of services and efficient delivery methods. Although the Internet now puts communication, education, commerce and socialization at our finger tips, its rapid growth has raised some weighty security concerns with respect to multimedia content. The owners of this content face enormous challenges in safeguarding their intellectual property, while still exp...

Stephen King presents “a fresh adrenaline rush of terror” (People) in this electrifying #1 New York Times bestseller!The new minister came to Harlow, Maine, when Jamie Morton was a boy doing battle with his toy army men on the front lawn. The young Reverend Charles Jacobs and his beautiful wife brought new life to the local church and captivated their congregation. But with Jamie, he shares a secret obsession—a draw so powerful, it would have prof...

The Stanford Geostatistical Modeling Software (SGeMS) is an open-source computer package for solving problems involving spatially related variables. It provides geostatistics practitioners with a user-friendly interface, an interactive 3-D visualization, and a wide selection of algorithms. This practical book provides a step-by-step guide to using SGeMS algorithms. It explains the underlying theory, demonstrates their implementation, discusses their potential limitations, and helps the use...

In this terrifying Women's Murder Club novel from the world's #1 bestselling author, a series of fires blazes through California, raging way too close to home.A terrible fire in a wealthy suburban home leaves a married couple dead, and Detective Lindsay Boxer and her partner Rich Conklin searching for clues. And after California's golden boy Michael Campion has been missing for a month, there finally seems to be a devastating lead in his case.As fire after ...