A leading Catholic historian tells the fascinating story of how the Jesuits shaped the modern worldSince its founding by Ignatius of Loyola in 1540, the Society of Jesus—commonly known as the Jesuits—has played a critical role in the events of modern history.In A Concise History of the Jesuits, Markus Friedrich, a leading historian of the Jesuits in academia, tells the story of the Society of Jesus from its founding to the papacy of Francis, the fi...

The most comprehensive and up-to-date exploration of one of the most important religious orders in the modern worldSince its founding by Ignatius of Loyola in 1540, the Society of Jesus—more commonly known as the Jesuits—has played a critical role in the events of modern history. From the Counter-Reformation to the ascent of Francis I as the first Jesuit pope, The Jesuits presents an intimate look at one of the most important religious orders not only in t...

The Birth of the Archive traces the history of archives from their emergence in the Late Middle Ages through the Early Modern Period, and vividly shows how archives permeated and fundamentally changed European culture. Archives were compiled and maintained by peasants and kings, merchants and churchmen, and conceptions of archives were as diverse as those who used them. The complex, demanding job of the archivist was just as variable: archivists might serve as custodians, record-k...

A history of genealogical knowledge-making strategies in the early modern world.In The Maker of Pedigrees, Markus Friedrich explores the complex and fascinating world of central European genealogy practices during the Baroque era. Drawing on archival material from a dozen European institutions, Friedrich reconstructs how knowledge about noble families was created, authenticated, circulated, and published. Jakob Wilhelm Imhoff, a wealthy and well-connected ...

This book provides an overview of the available evidence surrounding immunotherapy in gastrointestinal cancers, and discusses its future place in clinical practice.Immunotherapy has celebrated some astonishing therapeutic successes in a variety of cancer types and is becoming increasingly relevant in daily clinical practice. Currently, the predominant class of immunotherapeutic drugs is the so-called checkpoint inhibitors, which disengage the physiological brakes on the immune syst...

In this age of information overload, people use a variety of strategies to make choices about what to buy, how to spend their leisure time, and even whom to date. Recommender systems automate some of these strategies with the goal of providing affordable, personal, and high-quality recommendations. This book offers an overview of approaches to developing state-of-the-art recommender systems. The authors present current algorithmic approaches for generating personalized buying proposals, su...

Many claims are made about how certain tools, technologies, and practices improve software development. But which claims are verifiable, and which are merely wishful thinking? In this book, leading thinkers such as Steve McConnell, Barry Boehm, and Barbara Kitchenham offer essays that uncover the truth and unmask myths commonly held among the software development community. Their insights may surprise you.Are some programmers really ten times more productive than others?...

The issue of data quality is as old as data itself. However, the proliferation of diverse, large-scale and often publically available data on the Web has increased the risk of poor data quality and misleading data interpretations. On the other hand, data is now exposed at a much more strategic level e.g. through business intelligence systems, increasing manifold the stakes involved for individuals, corporations as well as government agencies. There, the lack of knowledge about data accurac...

In plain, uncomplicated language, and using detailed examples to explain the key concepts, models, and algorithms in vertical search ranking, Relevance Ranking for Vertical Search Engines teaches readers how to manipulate ranking algorithms to achieve better results in real-world applications. This reference book for professionals covers concepts and theories from the fundamental to the advanced, such as relevance, query intention, location-based relevance ranking, and cross-property ranki...

The Art and Science of Analyzing Software Data provides valuable information on analysis techniques often used to derive insight from software data. This book shares best practices in the field generated by leading data scientists, collected from their experience training software engineering students and practitioners to master data science. The book covers topics such as the analysis of security data, code reviews, app stores, log files, and user telemetry, among others. It covers a wide...

This book provides a systematic and comparative description of the vast number of research issues related to the quality of data and information. It does so by delivering a sound, integrated and comprehensive overview of the state of the art and future development of data and information quality in databases and information systems.To this end, it presents an extensive description of the techniques that constitute the core of data and information quality research, including record ...

Software testing is needed to assess the quality of developed software. However, it consumes a critical amount of time and resources, often delaying the software release date and increasing the overall cost. The answer to this problem is effective test automation, which is expected to meet the need for effective software testing while reducing amount of required time and resources. Advanced Automated Software Testing: Frameworks for Refined Practice discusses the current state of test auto...