In New York’s high-end restaurant scene one chef will do anything, and cook anything, to come out on top.

Kash owes a lot of money. His restaurant, specialising in exotic meats and catering to New York’s elite, was doing well. Then business dried up, and now Boris the loan shark wants his investment back. But Kash has a plan.

There’s a rumour of a dinner club, hosted in turns by billionaires. Lots of ego, and lots of money. If Kash can get the gig, it would pay off Boris and then some. He will need to offer something new, something that five of the richest men on the planet will have never tasted before. Something entirely unprecedented …

But Boris is done waiting. He kidnaps Kash, takes him to a warehouse and cuts off his finger.

And this gives Kash an idea.

Food, Medical, and Environmental Applications of Polysaccharides provides a detailed resource for those interested in the design and preparation of polysaccharides for state-of-the-art applications. The book begins with an introductory section covering sources, chemistry, architectures, bioactivity, and chemical modifications of polysaccharides. Subsequent parts of the book are organized by field, with chapters focusing on specific applications across food, medicine, and the environment. This is an extremely valuable book for researchers, scientists, and advanced students in biopolymers, polymer science, polymer chemistry, biomaterials, materials science, biotechnology, biomedical engineering, cosmetics, medicine, food science, and environmental science. This important class of biopolymer can offer attractive properties and modification potential, enabling its use in groundbreaking areas across food, medical, and environmental fields. The book will be of interest to scientists, R&D professionals, designers, and engineers who utilize polysaccharide-based materials.

Unmanned Aerial Systems: Theoretical Foundation and Applications presents some of the latest innovative approaches to drones from the point-of-view of dynamic modeling, system analysis, optimization, control, communications, 3D-mapping, search and rescue, surveillance, farmland and construction monitoring, and more. With the emergence of low-cost UAS, a vast array of research works in academia and products in the industrial sectors have evolved. The book covers the safe operation of UAS, including, but not limited to, fundamental design, mission and path planning, control theory, computer vision, artificial intelligence, applications requirements, and more. This book provides a unique reference of the state-of-the-art research and development of unmanned aerial systems, making it an essential resource for researchers, instructors and practitioners.

The book discusses the failure of many African governments in providing the social needs of the masses, thereby placing the citizenry on the desperate quest for economic resources. Unfortunately, in many African States, mineral resources are owned, explored and marketed by the machinery of the state. The problem arises when the masses begin to challenge state access and ownership of resources that are domiciled within their ancestral land, communities, and constituencies. Often the challenge and resistance to state ownership of resources is generated by communal or group sense of exploitation, negligence and widespread poverty in the face of high resource endowment and waste by the government officials.  Paradoxically, in Niger Delta of Nigeria, as discussed in the book, the state has unleashed unlimited might upon all social groups and agitators, thereby leading to the increased act of taking arms by such groups. When the informal resource agitators succeed in arming themselves, they begin to demand social and environmental justice, thereby leading to mass armed conflict between them and the government security agencies. Sometimes, the confrontation could be between them and other rival local resource actors in the informal sector of their country’s economy bearing in mind that the resources within their jurisdiction have become the central determinant of national commonwealth.   It is at that state of desperado to control access, extraction and sale of natural resources in a State, by different armed groups that the process of natural resources extraction qualifies as the most visible cause of conflicts and crises around the African continent that is the centrepiece of the book. This is quite understandable given that mineral resource is a gift of nature; and nature is that phenomenon that every human, group and nation claim to represent, or, believe to represent them.

Seven-year-old Anthony Majok was torn from his happy African village and began running for his life, due to ongoing civil war, sparked by religious and political strife. The Christian Majok family, along with many others, refused to take up the Islam faith. Over the next 17 years, Majok and thousands of lost boys and girls of Sudan battled well-armed soldiers, vicious animals, hunger and disease as they fled across the continent. Set in South Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and, finally, the United States, it is Majok's unwavering faith that helps him withstand devastating hardship. Journey of Faith conveys not only Majok's moving personal story, it illuminates the reasons for decades of war in Sudan.

This is the fourth volume of the successful series Robot Operating Systems: The Complete Reference, providing a comprehensive overview of robot operating systems (ROS), which is currently the main development framework for robotics applications, as well as the latest trends and contributed systems. The book is divided into four parts: Part 1 features two papers on navigation, discussing SLAM and path planning. Part 2 focuses on the integration of ROS into quadcopters and their control. Part 3 then discusses two emerging applications for robotics: cloud robotics, and video stabilization. Part 4 presents tools developed for ROS; the first is a practical alternative to the roslaunch system, and the second is related to penetration testing. This book is a valuable resource for ROS users and wanting to learn more about ROS capabilities and features.