The never-before-seen history of Westeros and the lands beyond. With hundreds of pages of all-new material from George R.R. Martin. If the past is prologue, then George R.R. Martin's masterwork-the most inventive and entertaining fantasy saga of our time-warrants one hell of an introduction. At long last, it has arrived with THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE. George R.R. Martin, in collaboration with Elio M. Garcia, Jr. and Linda Antonsson, has written a comprehensive history of the Seven Kingdoms, featuring the epic battles, bitter rivalries, and daring rebellions that lead up to the events in the bestselling A Song of Ice and Fire series. Collected within this volume is the accumulated knowledge, scholarly speculation, and inherited folk tales of maesters and septons, maegi and singers, including over 170 full-colour illustrations and maps, family trees for the Houses Stark, Lannister and Targaryen, and in-depth explanations of the history and culture of Westeros. This is the definitive companion volume to George R.R. Martin's dazzlingly conceived universe; THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE is indeed proof that the pen is mightier than a storm of swords.

This lavish visual history-featuring over 150 new, full-colour illustrations-is a stunning introduction to House Targaryen, the iconic family at the heart of HBO's Game of Thrones prequel series, House of the Dragon. For hundreds of years, the Targaryens sat the Iron Throne of Westeros while their dragons ruled the skies. The story of the only family of dragonlords to survive Valyria's Doom is a tale of twisty politics, alliances and betrayals, and acts both noble and craven. The Rise of the Dragon chronicles the creation and rise of Targaryen power in Westeros, covering the history first told in George R. R. Martin's epic Fire & Blood, from Aegon Targaryen's conquest of Westeros through to the infamous Dance of the Dragons-the bloody civil war that nearly undid Targaryen rule for good. Packed with all-new artwork, the Targaryens-and their dragons-come vividly to life in this deluxe reference book. Perfect for fans steeped in the lore of Westeros, as well as those who first meet the Targaryens in the HBO series House of the Dragon, The Rise of the Dragon provides a must-have overview for anyone looking to learn more about the most powerful family in Westeros.

This volume offers a detailed analysis of selected cases in the reception, translation, and artistic reinterpretation of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities (1972) around the world. The book traces the many different ways in which Calvino's modern classic has been read, translated and adapted in Brazil, France, The Netherlands and Flanders, Mexico, Romania, Scandinavia, the USSR, China, Poland, Japan and Australia, as well as offering analyses of the relation between Calvino's book and, respectively, the East and Africa, and reflections on the book's inspiration for and resonance in dance, architecture and art. The volume thus traces the diversity in the reception and circulation of Invisible Cities in different countries and continents, offering a much wider framework for the discussion of Calvino’s masterpiece than before, and a more detailed picture of its cultural and linguistic ramifications. This book will be of interest to scholars in Comparative Literature, World Literature, Translation Studies, Italian Studies, Romance Languages, European Studies, Dance, Architecture and Media Studies, as well as to scholars specialised in paratext and reception.

"Heartwarming... infectious ... [Morillo's The Boy Who Reached for the Stars] is every bit the inspiration he means it to be." –Kirkus Reviews The engineer known as the “space mechanic� speaks to both our future and past in this breathless memoir of his journey from Ecuador to NASA and beyond. Elio Morillo’s life is abruptly spun out of orbit when economic collapse and personal circumstances compel his mother to flee Ecuador for the United States in search of a better future for her son. His itinerant childhood sets into motion a migration that will ultimately carry Elio to the farthest expanse of human endeavor: space. Overcoming a history of systemic adversity and inequality in public education, Elio forged ahead on a journey as indebted to his galactic dreams as to a loving mother whose sacrifices safeguarded the ground beneath his feet. Today, Elio is helping drive human expansion into the solar system and promote the future of human innovation—from AI and robotics to space infrastructure and equitable access. The Boy Who Reached the Stars is both a cosmic and intimate memoir spun from a constellation of memories, reflections, and intrepid curiosity, as thoroughly luminous as the stars above.

Microsurgical Endodontics, a term coined by the author himself, is a branch of Endodontics that allows to save dental elements otherwise lost and intended to be replaced with implants. The study of it means adding precious information to your knowledge in endodontics. There are many indications of intervention, always linked to the failure of a previous treatment and may include solutions that, once put into practice, can resolve clinically complicated situations in a single session. The text presents a complete examination of the diagnostic approaches, of the clinical procedures, of the necessary tools and of the possible complications that Microsurgical Endodontics involves. It presents a complete picture, both from the theoretical point of view and the practical aspect, in order to face every intervention with confidence, from the management of soft tissues to the early removal of a suture.

No matter where you are in your grief journey, The Grief Deck offers sensitive and supportive tools to help you process your emotions. Its sixty illustrated cards, created by a diverse array of artists and grief workers, offer thoughtful prompts, simple activities, richly textured artwork, and grounding resources for coping with loss. Everyone faces grief in their own way, and in their own time. The Grief Deck provides accessible entry points to meet you where you are in that process, and activities to guide you forward. The sixty beautiful cards in this deck include meditations for reconnecting with your body and senses and taking moments to reflect in nature; prompts to help you address anxiety, hold a vigil, or create rituals of remembrance; and guidance on finding time for intentional rest and developing daily routines. These activities-each one paired with artwork for reflection-can be explored in any order, at any time as needed. Although each person's journey is unique, this interactive deck will help you constructively address grief in daily life, a little bit at a time.

This book constitutes the extended and revised versions of a set of selected papers from the 13th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management, IC3K 2021, on October 25–27, 2021. The conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 crisis. The 9 full papers included in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 103 submissions. The purpose of the IC3K is to bring together researchers, engineers and practitioners on the areas of Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management. IC3K is composed of three co-located conferences, each specialized in at least one of the aforementioned main knowledge areas.

Capitalizing on the extensive experience of the author in estimating shadow prices, Shadow Prices for Project Appraisal forges a bridge between theory and practice, explaining what shadow (or accounting) prices are, how they are used, and how they can be estimated. Starting from the basic principles of applied welfare economics, Elio Londero's book provides a step by step derivation of those formulas more frequently utilized in estimating shadow prices. The preparation and use of input-output techniques are examined in detail, and different estimation approaches and updating procedures are presented. Finally, a detailed case study of shadow prices for Colombia illustrates their practical application. This book will be essential reading for students and teachers interested in cost-benefit analysis, and in shadow prices as a specialized field of applied welfare economics. In addition, the book will be an invaluable source for applied economists and practitioners interested in calculating shadow prices.

This book discusses the challenges facing current research in knowledge discovery and data mining posed by the huge volumes of complex data now gathered in various real-world applications (e.g., business process monitoring, cybersecurity, medicine, language processing, and remote sensing). The book consists of 14 chapters covering the latest research by the authors and the research centers they represent. It illustrates techniques and algorithms that have recently been developed to preserve the richness of the data and allow us to efficiently and effectively identify the complex information it contains. Presenting the latest developments in complex pattern mining, this book is a valuable reference resource for data science researchers and professionals in academia and industry.

This book discusses the challenges facing current research in knowledge discovery and data mining posed by the huge volumes of complex data now gathered in various real-world applications (e.g., business process monitoring, cybersecurity, medicine, language processing, and remote sensing). The book consists of 14 chapters covering the latest research by the authors and the research centers they represent. It illustrates techniques and algorithms that have recently been developed to preserve the richness of the data and allow us to efficiently and effectively identify the complex information it contains. Presenting the latest developments in complex pattern mining, this book is a valuable reference resource for data science researchers and professionals in academia and industry.

"Personalist Bioethics" calls us to reflect on the intimate meaning of human existence and the social environment, going beyond any specific religious perspective and invoking human reason. It advances a metaphysics that is rationally grounded in philosophical anthropology and has a broad range of ethical applications for professors of bioethics, members of ethics committees, bioethics students, and those interested in the field in general, whether in medicine, law, or philosophy. Readers will find a presentation and discussion of the basic contours of personalist bioethics, comparisons of personalism with other philosophical positions, and ethical investigations of particular topics, ranging from genetic engineering to euthanasia. Translated by John A. Di Camillo and Michael J. Miller.

This graduate textbook, written by a former lecturer, addresses industrial chemical reaction topics, focusing on the commercial-scale exploitation of chemical reactions. It introduces students to the concepts behind the successful design and operation of chemical reactors, with an emphasis on qualitative arguments, simple design methods, graphical procedures, and frequent comparison of capabilities of the major reactor types. It starts by discussing simple ideas before moving on to more advanced concepts with the support of numerous case studies. Many simple and advanced exercises are present in each chapter and the detailed MATLAB code for their solution is available to the reader as supplementary material on Springer website. It is written for MSc chemical engineering students and novice researchers working in industrial laboratories.

This book offers readers a comprehensive guide to the evolution of the database field from its earliest stages up to the present-and from classical relational database management systems to the current Big Data metaphor. In particular, it gathers the most significant research from the Italian database community that had relevant intersections with international projects. Big Data technology is currently dominating both the market and research. The book provides readers with a broad overview of key research efforts in modelling, querying and analysing data, which, over the last few decades, have became massive and heterogeneous areas.

This book features a collection of revised and significantly extended versions of the papers accepted for presentation at the 6th International Workshop on New Frontiers in Mining Complex Patterns, NFMCP 2017, held in conjunction with ECML-PKDD 2017 in Skopje, Macedonia, in September 2017. The book is composed of five parts: feature selection and induction; classification prediction; clustering; pattern discovery; applications. The workshop was aimed at discussing and introducing new algorithmic foundations and representation formalisms in complex pattern discovery. Finally, it encouraged the integration of recent results from existing fields, such as Statistics, Machine Learning and Big Data Analytics.

This book investigates different aspects of the relationship between "healthy cities" and "urban planning", examining various best practices in Europe. It uses the above as a starting point and investigates different aspects of healthy cities, examining various best practices in Europe. Capitalizing on ongoing trials, the chapters identify the policies that underlie plans and projects that have caused positive changes in local communities in terms of the quality of life and safety of inhabitants. From these best practices, the book deduces criteria and guidelines for planning healthy and safe cities.

This provocative appraisal unpacks commonly held beliefs about healthcare management and replaces them with practical strategies and realistic policy goals. Using Henry Mintzberg's "Myths of Healthcare" as a springboard, it reveals management practices that undermine care delivery, explores their cultural and corporate origins, and details how they may be reversed through changes in management strategy, organization, scale, and style. Tackling conventional wisdom about decision-making, cost-effectiveness, service quality, and equity, contributors fine-tune concepts of mission and vision by promoting collaboration, engagement, and common sense. The book's multidisciplinary panel of experts analyzes the most popular healthcare management "myths," among them: * The healthcare system is failing. * The healthcare system can be fixed through social engineering. * Healthcare institutions can be fixed by bringing in the heroic leader. * The healthcare system can be fixed by treating it more as a business. * Healthcare is rightly left to the private sector, for the sake of efficiency. The Myths of Health Care speaks to a large, diverse audience: scholars of all levels interested in the research in health policy and management, graduate and under-graduate students attending courses in leadership and management of public sector organization, and practitioners in the field of health care.

This book highlights the use of an outcome-oriented view of performance to frame and assess the desirability of the effects produced by adopted policies, so to allow governments not only to consider effects in the short, but also the long run. Furthermore, it does not only focus on policy from the perspective of a single unit or institution, but also under an inter-institutional viewpoint. This book features theoretical and empirical research on how public organizations have evolved their performance management systems toward outcome measures that may allow one to better deal with wicked problems. Today, 'wicked problems' characterize most of governmental planning involving social issues. These are complex policy problems, underlying high risk and uncertainty, and a high interdependency among variables affecting them. Such problems cannot be clustered within the boundaries of a single organization, or referred to specific administrative levels or ministries. They are characterized by dynamic complexity, involving multi-level, multi-actor and multi-sectoral challenges. In the last decade, a number of countries have started to develop new approaches that may enable to improve cohesion, to effectively deal with wicked problems. The chapters in this book showcase these approaches, which encourage the adoption of more flexible and pervasive governmental systems to overcome such complex problems. Outcome-Based Performance Management in the Public Sector is divided into five parts. Part 1 aims at shedding light on problems and issues implied in the design and implementation of "outcome-based" performance management systems in the public sector. Then Part 2 illustrates the experiences, problems, and evolving trends in three different countries (Scotland, USA, and Italy) towards the adoption of outcome-based performance management systems in the public sector. Such analyses are conducted at both the national and local government levels. The third part of the book frames how outcome-based performance management can enhance public governance and inter-institutional coordination. Part 4 deals with the illustration of challenges and results from different public sector domains. Finally the book concludes in Part 5 as it examines innovative methods and tools that may support decision makers in dealing with the challenges of outcome-based performance management in the public sector. Though the book is specifically focused on a research target, it will also be useful to practitioners and master students in public administration .

This book offers readers a comprehensive guide to the evolution of the database field from its earliest stages up to the present-and from classical relational database management systems to the current Big Data metaphor. In particular, it gathers the most significant research from the Italian database community that had relevant intersections with international projects. Big Data technology is currently dominating both the market and research. The book provides readers with a broad overview of key research efforts in modelling, querying and analysing data, which, over the last few decades, have became massive and heterogeneous areas.

This book gives an overview of the current knowledge on the most common neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal lobar degeneration, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and additional neurodegenerative diseases. Different aspects of each disease are reviewed, including clinical issues, treatments, basic discoveries (genetics and molecular biology), and translation of basic research into biomarkers for early diagnosis. In addition, emerging data indicate that neurodegeneration seems to also be present in classically non-degenerative disorders. Therefore, a chapter about overlapping mechanisms between dementias and psychiatric disorders is included, as well as a description of the role of neurodegeneration in multiple sclerosis. Neurodegenerative Diseases is aimed at clinicians, particularly those working in academic hospitals. This multidisciplinary book will also be of interest to basic researchers in medical fields.

This book provides a unified treatment of Flip-Flop design and selection in nanometer CMOS VLSI systems. The design aspects related to the energy-delay tradeoff in Flip-Flops are discussed, including their energy-optimal selection according to the targeted application, and the detailed circuit design in nanometer CMOS VLSI systems. Design strategies are derived in a coherent framework that includes explicitly nanometer effects, including leakage, layout parasitics and process/voltage/temperature variations, as main advances over the existing body of work in the field. The related design tradeoffs are explored in a wide range of applications and the related energy-performance targets. A wide range of existing and recently proposed Flip-Flop topologies are discussed. Theoretical foundations are provided to set the stage for the derivation of design guidelines, and emphasis is given on practical aspects and consequences of the presented results. Analytical models and derivations are introduced when needed to gain an insight into the inter-dependence of design parameters under practical constraints. This book serves as a valuable reference for practicing engineers working in the VLSI design area, and as text book for senior undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students (already familiar with digital circuits and timing).