A heart-wrenching story from the international bestselling author of The Kite Runner, brought to life by Dan Williams's beautiful illustrations

On a moonlit beach a father cradles his sleeping son as they wait for dawn to break and a boat to arrive. He speaks to his boy of the long summers of his childhood, recalling his grandfather's house in Syria, the stirring of olive trees in the breeze, the bleating of his grandmother's goat, the clanking of her cooking pots. And he remembers, too, the bustling city of Homs with its crowded lanes, its mosque and grand souk, in the days before the sky spat bombs and they had to flee.

When the sun rises they and those around them will gather their possessions and embark on a perilous sea journey in search of a new home.

THE RICHARD & JUDY NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER 'Magnificent' Mail on Sunday 'Gripping' New York Times 'A master storyteller' The Times 'Epic' Sunday Telegraph Ten-year-old Abdullah would do anything for his younger sister. In a life of poverty and struggle, with no mother to care for them, Pari is the only person who brings Abdullah happiness. For her, he will trade his only pair of shoes to give her a feather for her treasured collection. When their father sets off with Pari across the desert to Kabul in search of work, Abdullah is determined not to be separated from her. Neither brother nor sister know what this fateful journey will bring them.

THE RICHARD & JUDY NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER 'A suspenseful epic' Daily Telegraph 'A triumph' Financial Times 'Heartbreaking' Mail on Sunday 'Deeply moving' Sunday Times Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism.

Medical images, in various formats, are used by clinicians to identify abnormalities or markers associated with certain conditions, such as cancers, diseases, abnormalities or other adverse health conditions. Deep learning algorithms use vast volumes of data to train the computer to recognise certain features in the images that are associated with the disease or condition that you wish to identify. Whilst analysing the images by eye can take a lot of time, deep learning algorithms have the benefit of reviewing medical images at a faster rate than a human can, which aids the clinician, speeding up diagnoses and freeing up clinicians' time for other duties. Deep Learning in Medical Image Processing and Analysis introduces the fundamentals of deep learning for biomedical image analysis for applications including ophthalmology, cancer detection and heart disease. The book considers the principles of multi-instance feature selection, swarm optimisation, parallel processing models, artificial neural networks, support vector machines, as well as their design and optimisation, in biomedical applications. Topics such as data security, patient confidentiality, effectiveness and reliability will also be discussed. Written by an international team of experts, this edited book covers principles and applications for industry and academic researchers, scientists, engineers, developers, and designers in the fields of machine learning, deep learning, AI, image processing, signal processing, computer science or related fields. It will also be of interest to standards bodies and regulators, and clinicians using deep learning models.

Polymeric Micelles for Drug Delivery provides a comprehensive overview on the synthesis, characterization and application of polymeric micelles in drug delivery applications. The use of nanomedicines and carriers, such as polymeric micelles, has made it possible to deliver drugs, genes and therapeutic agents to localized disease sites to maximize clinical benefit while limiting unwanted side effects. This book thoroughly reviews the development and application of polymeric micelles for drug delivery, covering various polymer types and the synthesis, characterization and pharmacokinetics of different micelles. Subsequent chapters go on to look at the range of drug delivery applications of polymeric micelles - such as mucosal and transdermal - and the assorted stimuli-responsive micelles available. The book concludes with an important analysis of the environmental and regulatory aspects associated with micelle development and clinical translation.

Afghanistan, 1975: Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what will happen to Hassan that afternoon, an event that is to shatter their lives.

After the Russians invade and the family is forced to flee to America, Amir realises that one day he must return to Afghanistan under Taliban rule to find the one thing that his new world cannot grant him: redemption.

THE RICHARD & JUDY NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER 'Magnificent' Mail on Sunday 'Gripping' New York Times 'A master storyteller' The Times 'Epic' Sunday Telegraph Ten-year-old Abdullah would do anything for his younger sister. In a life of poverty and struggle, with no mother to care for them, Pari is the only person who brings Abdullah happiness. For her, he will trade his only pair of shoes to give her a feather for her treasured collection. When their father sets off with Pari across the desert to Kabul in search of work, Abdullah is determined not to be separated from her. Neither brother nor sister know what this fateful journey will bring them.

Theory and Applications of Nonparenteral Nanomedicines presents thoroughly analysed data and results regarding the potential of nanomedicines conceived by diverse non-parenteral routes. In the context of nanotechnology-based approaches, various routes such as oral, pulmonary, transdermal, delivery and local administration of nanomedicine have been utilized for the delivery of nanomedicine. This book discusses the non-parenteral application of nanomedicine, its regulatory implications, application of mucus penetrating nanocarrier, and detailed chapters on development of nanomedicines developed for drug delivery by various route. Beginning with a brief introduction to the non-parenteral delivery of nanomedicine and the safety and regulatory implications of the nanoformulations, further chapters discuss the physiology of the biological barriers, the specificity of the nanocarriers as well as their multiple applications. Theory and Applications of Nonparenteral Nanomedicines helps clinical researchers, researchers working in pharmaceutical industries, graduate students, and anyone working in the development of non-parenteral nanomedicines to understand the recent progress in the design and development of nanoformulations compatible with non-parenteral applications.

Ibn Wasil (d. 1298), perhaps better known today as a historian and an emissary to the court of King Manfred in southern Italy, was also an eminent logician. The present work is a critical edition of his main work in the field, a commentary on his teacher Khunaji's (d. 1248) handbook al-Jumal. The work helped consolidate the logic of the "later scholars" (such as Khunaji). It also shows that commentators did much more than merely explain the original work and instead regularly discussed and assessed received views. Ibn Wasil's work was an influential contribution to a particularly dynamic chapter in the history of Arabic logic.

THE RICHARD & JUDY NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER 'A suspenseful epic' Daily Telegraph 'A triumph' Financial Times 'Heartbreaking' Mail on Sunday 'Deeply moving' Sunday Times Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism.

In the first Commentary on the United Nations Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons - known colloquially as the Pinheiro Principles - Khaled Hassine and Scott Leckie outline the restitution rights of persons who have faced forced displacement and the loss of their homes, lands and properties. The Commentary compiles and analyzes in considerable detail the legal contents of the Pinheiro Principles - a consolidated international instrument generated by the United Nations in 2005 to provide a solid normative framework on these questions and which legal duties exist for states and the international community to secure them. The book will be of vital interest for all actors concerned with applying restitution rights in practice.

High-Performance Computing using FPGA covers the area of high performance reconfigurable computing (HPRC). This book provides an overview of architectures, tools and applications for High-Performance Reconfigurable Computing (HPRC). FPGAs offer very high I/O bandwidth and fine-grained, custom and flexible parallelism and with the ever-increasing computational needs coupled with the frequency/power wall, the increasing maturity and capabilities of FPGAs, and the advent of multicore processors which has caused the acceptance of parallel computational models. The Part on architectures will introduce different FPGA-based HPC platforms: attached co-processor HPRC architectures such as the CHREC's Novo-G and EPCC's Maxwell systems; tightly coupled HRPC architectures, e.g. the Convey hybrid-core computer; reconfigurably networked HPRC architectures, e.g. the QPACE system, and standalone HPRC architectures such as EPFL's CONFETTI system. The Part on Tools will focus on high-level programming approaches for HPRC, with chapters on C-to-Gate tools (such as Impulse-C, AutoESL, Handel-C, MORA-C++); Graphical tools (MATLAB-Simulink, NI LabVIEW); Domain-specific languages, languages for heterogeneous computing(for example OpenCL, Microsoft's Kiwi and Alchemy projects). The part on Applications will present case from several application domains where HPRC has been used successfully, such as Bioinformatics and Computational Biology; Financial Computing; Stencil computations; Information retrieval; Lattice QCD; Astrophysics simulations; Weather and climate modeling.

After the global financial crisis, the topic of corporate governance has been gaining momentum in accounting and finance literature since it may influence firm and bank management in many countries. Corporate Governance and Its Implications on Accounting and Finance provides emerging research exploring the implications of a good corporate governance system after global financial crises. Corporate governance mechanisms may include board and audit committee characteristics, ownership structure, and internal and external auditing. This book is devoted to all topics dealing with corporate governance including corporate governance characteristics, board diversity, CSR, big data governance, bitcoin governance, IT governance, and governance disclosure, and is ideally designed for executives, BODs, financial analysts, government officials, researchers, policymakers, academicians, and students.

As computer technologies continue to evolve and new security threats emerge, secure-aware software developments are essential in the software engineering field. Developing and Evaluating Security-Aware Software Systems provides innovative ideas and methods on the development, operation, and maintenance of secure software systems and aims to highlight the construction of a functional software system and a secure system simultaneously. This book is practical for researchers, academics and practitioners in the software engineering and security fields.

With the prevalence of cyber crime and cyber warfare, software developers must be vigilant in creating systems which are impervious to cyber attacks. Thus, security issues are an integral part of every phase of software development and an essential component of software design. Security-Aware Systems Applications and Software Development Methods facilitates the promotion and understanding of the technical as well as managerial issues related to secure software systems and their development practices. This book, targeted toward researchers, software engineers, and field experts, outlines cutting-edge industry solutions in software engineering and security research to help overcome contemporary challenges.

Intended as an introductory text in soil mechanics, the eighth edition of Das, PRINCIPLES OF GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING offers an overview of soil properties and mechanics together with coverage of field practices and basic engineering procedure. Background information needed to support study in later design-oriented courses or in professional practice is provided through a wealth of comprehensive discussions, detailed explanations, and more figures and worked out problems than any other text in the market.

Managing organizational talent, of both current employees and possible recruits alike, is a key factor of running a successful business. A company is only as good as the staff, and studying the most effective ways to cultivate these groups can allow business managers an easy way to boost efficiency within their ranks. Driving Multinational Enterprises Through Effective Global Talent Management provides a comprehensive examination of the latest strategies and methods for attracting, selecting, training, developing and promoting employees within an organization. Highlighting innovative practices and applications across a variety of areas such as expatriate staffing, talent identification, and multinational company practices, this book is an ideal reference source for company owners, organization managers, practitioners, business students, and researchers that are interested in learning more about current trends and techniques in talent management.

Khaled Anatolios, a noted expert on the development of Nicene theology, offers a historically informed theological study of the development of the doctrine of the Trinity, showing its relevance to Christian life and thought today. According to Anatolios, the development of trinitarian doctrine involved a global interpretation of Christian faith as a whole. Consequently, the meaning of trinitarian doctrine is to be found in a reappropriation of the process of this development, such that the entirety of Christian existence is interpreted in a trinitarian manner. The book provides essential resources for this reappropriation by identifying the network of theological issues that comprise the "systematic scope" of Nicene theology, focusing especially on the trinitarian perspectives of three major theologians: Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine. It includes a foreword by Brian E. Daley.