This book provides an integrated solution for security and safety in the home, covering both assistance in health monitoring and safety from strangers/intruders who want to enter the home with harmful intentions. It defines a system whereby recognition of a person/stranger at the door is done using three modules: Face Recognition, Voice Recognition and Similarity Index. These three modules are taken together to provide a percentage likelihood that the individual is in the "known" or "unknown" category. The system can also continuously monitor the health parameters of a vulnerable person living alone at home and aid them in calling for help in an emergency. The authors have analyzed a number of existing biometric techniques to provide security for an individual living alone at home. These biometric techniques have been tested using MATLAB (R) image processing and signal processing toolboxes, and results have been calculated on the basis of recognition rate. A major contribution in providing security is a hybrid algorithm proposed by the author named PICA, which combines features of both PCA (Principle Component Analysis) and ICA (Independent Component Analysis) algorithms. This hybrid approach gives better performance recognition than either system alone. The second proposed hybrid algorithm for voice recognition is named as a MFRASTA algorithm by combining features of MFCC (Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficient) and RASTA-PLP (RelAtive SpecTrA-Perceptual Linear Prediction) algorithm. After performing experiments, results are collected on the basis of recognition rate. The authors have also proposed a third technique named as a Similarity Index to provide trust-based security for an individual. This technique is text independent in which a person is recognized by pronunciation, frequency, tone, pitch, etc., irrespective of the content spoken by the person. By combining these three techniques, a high recognition rate is provided to the person at the door and high security to the individual living independently at home. In the final contribution, the authors have proposed a fingertip-based application for health monitoring by using the concept of sensors. This application is developed using iPhone 6's camera. When a person puts their fingertip on a camera lens, with the help of brightness of the skin, the person's heartbeat will be monitored. This is possible even with a low-quality camera. In case of any emergency, text messages will be sent to the family members of the individual living alone by using 3G Dongle and MATLAB tool. Results show that the proposed work outperforms all the existing techniques used in face recognition, voice recognition, and health monitoring alone.

This book reflects on the life and politics of Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) and his efforts to broker peace and reconciliation in a deeply divided country. Through examples from apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, it explores conflict and methods for realising peace, social justice, and democracy. The book looks at the festering of animosity and racial bitterness between the white Afrikaner community and the black community during years of racial violence, injustices, and authoritarianism in South Africa. In the most violent phase of the country's history, Mandela offered to both communities peaceful means to ensure equality, justice, and inclusivity. The author highlights the extraordinary challenges which Mandela faced in mobilising consent and persuading both the black and the Afrikaner community to acquiesce to a peaceful transfer of power. The volume further details the socio-political contexts and negotiations which resulted in the swift transfer of power, Mandela's insistence on crafting inclusive systems of nationhood, his multi-cultural cabinet, and the institutionalisation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address challenges facing the two communities in the post-conflict period. An accessible introduction to one of the greatest leaders in contemporary history, this book will be essential reading for scholars and researchers of peace and conflict studies, social exclusion and discrimination, critical race theory, human rights, politics, decolonisation and post-colonial studies, sociology, and history.

Organization of data warehouses is a vital, but often neglected, aspect of growing an enterprise. Unlike most books on the subject that focus on either the technical aspects of building data warehouses or on business strategies, this valuable reference synthesizes technological know-how with managerial best practices to show how improved alignment between data warehouse plans and business strategies can lead to successful data warehouse adoption capable of supporting an enterprise's entire infrastructure. Strategic Data Warehousing: Achieving Alignment with Business provides data warehouse developers, business managers, and IT professionals and administrators with an integrated approach to achieving successful and sustainable alignment of data warehouses and business goals. More complete than any other text in the field, this comprehensive reference details the joint roles and responsibilities of the data warehouse and business managers in achieving strategic alignment, business user satisfaction, technical integration, and improved flexibility. Complete with case studies that depict real-world scenarios, the text: Examines the organizational, user, data, and technological factors proven to promote successful data warehousing Includes actionable solutions for achieving strategic alignment Provides a model that readers can apply in aligning their own data warehouse needs and business goals Achieving sustainable alignment between the data warehouse and business strategies is a continuous process. Armed with this valuable reference, readers will be able to gain the solid understanding of the organizational, technical, data, and user factors needed to promote a successful data warehouse adoption and become active partners in leveraging this powerful, but often overlooked, information reso

The Living Faiths series encourages students to actively engage with religious education by looking into how faiths are practised and lived in people's daily lives. This Student Book covers Hinduism through unique real-life case studies of young people and their families, making RE relevant to KS3 RE Students today. This Student Book uses an enquiry-led approach to help students relate to religion through engaging activities, end-of-chapter assessment tasks, and links to rich audio-visual content.

Decisions to withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment are contentious, and offer difficult moral dilemmas to both medical practitioners and the judiciary. This issue is exacerbated when the patient is unable to exercise autonomy and is entirely dependent on the will of others. This book focuses on the legal and ethical complexities surrounding end of life decisions for critically impaired and extremely premature infants. Neera Bhatia explores decisions to withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment from critically impaired infants and addresses the controversial question, which lives are too expensive to treat? Bringing to bear such key issues as clinical guidance, public awareness, and resource allocation, the book provides a rational approach to end of life decision making, where decisions to withdraw or withhold treatment may trump other competing interests. The book will be of great interest and use to scholars and students of bioethics, medical law, and medical practitioners.

This book offers a comparative analysis of social protection policies in five countries of South Asia - India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh - where economic transformation impelled by globalisation and liberalisation has, on the one hand, caused an unprecedented expansion of the informal sector, and heightened the vulnerabilities of its workers on the other. It examines the multiple vulnerabilities of workers who continue to work and live in abysmal conditions, with persistent cutbacks in social security budgets by governments, and evaluates the implementation and efficacy of current policies. The volume introduces the problem through an overview of South Asian economies by charting out the contrasting parallels between growth paths and the extent of poverty among workers in the informal sector. Further, it assesses the projected cost of basic social protection in these economies in the context of different (possible) growth scenarios. The second part of the book discusses the experiences from various countries by highlighting work force composition, ratio of workers in the informal sector to total work force, challenges and concerns, available policies and programmes, and finally, the outreach of these programmes. The concluding section argues for the need for social protection in South Asia by exposing the limitations of existing policies, and proposes a future course of action in order that social protection may serve as a tool in the transformation of social policy. This will be useful to scholars, students and researchers of development studies, economics, politics and labour law. It would also interest those in voluntary sector organisations, nongovernmental organisations, policy makers, journalists and think tanks.

Decisions to withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment are contentious, and offer difficult moral dilemmas to both medical practitioners and the judiciary. This issue is exacerbated when the patient is unable to exercise autonomy and is entirely dependent on the will of others. This book focuses on the legal and ethical complexities surrounding end of life decisions for critically impaired and extremely premature infants. Neera Bhatia explores decisions to withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment from critically impaired infants and addresses the controversial question, which lives are too expensive to treat? Bringing to bear such key issues as clinical guidance, public awareness, and resource allocation, the book provides a rational approach to end of life decision making, where decisions to withdraw or withhold treatment may trump other competing interests. The book will be of great interest and use to scholars and students of bioethics, medical law, and medical practitioners.

This book offers a comparative analysis of social protection policies in five countries of South Asia India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh where economic transformation impelled by globalisation and liberalisation has, on the one hand, caused an unprecedented expansion of the informal sector, and heightened the vulnerabilities of its workers on the other. It examines the multiple vulnerabilities of workers who continue to work and live in abysmal conditions, with persistent cutbacks in social security budgets by governments, and evaluates the implementation and efficacy of current policies.

The volume introduces the problem through an overview of South Asian economies by charting out the contrasting parallels between growth paths and the extent of poverty among workers in the informal sector. Further, it assesses the projected cost of basic social protection in these economies in the context of different (possible) growth scenarios. The second part of the book discusses the experiences from various countries by highlighting work force composition, ratio of workers in the informal sector to total work force, challenges and concerns, available policies and programmes, and finally, the outreach of these programmes. The concluding section argues for the need for social protection in South Asia by exposing the limitations of existing policies, and proposes a future course of action in order that social protection may serve as a tool in the transformation of social policy.

This will be useful to scholars, students and researchers of development studies, economics, politics and labour law. It would also interest those in voluntary sector organisations, nongovernmental organisations, policy makers, journalists and think tanks.

This book reflects on the life and politics of Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) and his efforts to broker peace and reconciliation in a deeply divided country. Through examples from apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, it explores conflict and methods for realising peace, social justice, and democracy. The book looks at the festering of animosity and racial bitterness between the white Afrikaner community and the black community during years of racial violence, injustices, and authoritarianism in South Africa. In the most violent phase of the country's history, Mandela offered to both communities peaceful means to ensure equality, justice, and inclusivity. The author highlights the extraordinary challenges which Mandela faced in mobilising consent and persuading both the black and the Afrikaner community to acquiesce to a peaceful transfer of power. The volume further details the socio-political contexts and negotiations which resulted in the swift transfer of power, Mandela's insistence on crafting inclusive systems of nationhood, his multi-cultural cabinet, and the institutionalisation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address challenges facing the two communities in the post-conflict period. An accessible introduction to one of the greatest leaders in contemporary history, this book will be essential reading for scholars and researchers of peace and conflict studies, social exclusion and discrimination, critical race theory, human rights, politics, decolonisation and post-colonial studies, sociology, and history.

This book suggests how the internationalisation of teaching and learning for sustainability can be a vehicle for a two-way flow of knowledge across national, cultural and theoretical boundaries. Establishing links between the internationalisation of education and the ideal of global sustainability, the author presents innovative alternative solutions to address the pressing social, environmental and ethical problems of our age, a global priority demanding an educational response. By engaging with the Hindi concept of tri-vid, the three-in-one unification of knowledge, the author reassesses the very nature of knowledge through the intellectual agency of both students and educators. Once opportunities for alternatives not available in dominant Western knowledge traditions are recognised, the development of an innovative alternative perspective becomes possible. This pioneering book will be of interest to students and scholars of international education, sustainability education and globalisation.

Organization of data warehouses is a vital, but often neglected, aspect of growing an enterprise. Unlike most books on the subject that focus on either the technical aspects of building data warehouses or on business strategies, this valuable reference synthesizes technological know-how with managerial best practices to show how improved alignment between data warehouse plans and business strategies can lead to successful data warehouse adoption capable of supporting an enterprise s entire infrastructure.

Strategic Data Warehousing: Achieving Alignment with Business provides data warehouse developers, business managers, and IT professionals and administrators with an integrated approach to achieving successful and sustainable alignment of data warehouses and business goals. More complete than any other text in the field, this comprehensive reference details the joint roles and responsibilities of the data warehouse and business managers in achieving strategic alignment, business user satisfaction, technical integration, and improved flexibility.

Complete with case studies that depict real-world scenarios, the text:

• Examines the organizational, user, data, and technological factors proven to promote successful data warehousing
• Includes actionable solutions for achieving strategic alignment
• Provides a model that readers can apply in aligning their own data warehouse needs and business goals

Achieving sustainable alignment between the data warehouse and business strategies is a continuous process. Armed with this valuable reference, readers will be able to gain the solid understanding of the organizational, technical, data, and user factors needed to promote a successful data warehouse adoption and become active partners in leveraging this powerful, but often overlooked, information resource.

As organizations deploy business intelligence and analytic systems to harness business value from their data assets, data governance programs are quickly gaining prominence. And, although data management issues have traditionally been addressed by IT departments, organizational issues critical to successful data management require the implementation of enterprise-wide accountabilities and responsibilities.
Data Governance: Creating Value from Information Assets examines the processes of using data governance to manage data effectively. Addressing the complete life cycle of effective data governance from metadata management to privacy and compliance it provides business managers, IT professionals, and students with an integrated approach to designing, developing, and sustaining an effective data governance strategy.

• Explains how to align data governance with business goals
• Describes how to build successful data stewardship with a governance framework
• Outlines strategies for integrating IT and data governance frameworks
• Supplies business-driven and technical perspectives on data quality management, metadata management, data access and security, and data lifecycle

The book summarizes the experiences of global experts in the field and addresses critical areas of interest to the information systems and management community. Case studies from healthcare and financial sectors, two industries that have successfully leveraged the potential of data-driven strategies, provide further insights into real-time practice.
Facilitating a comprehensive understanding of data governance, the book addresses the burning issue of aligning data assets to both IT assets and organizational strategic goals. With a focus on the organizational, operational, and strategic aspects of data governance, the text provides you with the understanding required to leverage, derive, and sustain maximum value from the informational assets housed in your IT infrastructure.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of plant stresses caused by salt, drought, extreme temperatures, oxygen and toxic compounds, which are responsible for huge losses in crop yields. It discusses the latest research on the impact of salinity and global environment changes, and examines the advances in the identification and characterization of the mechanisms that allow plants to tolerate biotic and abiotic stresses. Further it presents our current understanding of metabolic fluxes and the various transporters that collectively open the possibility of applying in vitro technology and genetic engineering to improve stress tolerance. Exploring advanced methods that augment traditional plant tissue culture and breeding techniques toward the development of new crop varieties that can tolerate biotic and abiotic stresses to achieve sustainable food production, this book is a valuable resource for plant scientists and researchers.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of plant stresses caused by salt, drought, extreme temperatures, oxygen and toxic compounds, which are responsible for huge losses in crop yields. It discusses the latest research on the impact of salinity and global environment changes, and examines the advances in the identification and characterization of the mechanisms that allow plants to tolerate biotic and abiotic stresses. Further it presents our current understanding of metabolic fluxes and the various transporters that collectively open the possibility of applying in vitro technology and genetic engineering to improve stress tolerance. Exploring advanced methods that augment traditional plant tissue culture and breeding techniques toward the development of new crop varieties that can tolerate biotic and abiotic stresses to achieve sustainable food production, this book is a valuable resource for plant scientists and researchers.

Edited by Professor Neera Chandhoke, 'Mapping Histories' is a fitting tribute to renowned historian Ravinder Kumar, well known for his pioneering work on the social consequences of colonial rule in India, and for founding the Centre for Contemporary Studies at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Here, Fellows of the centre present a collection of historical and contemporary studies on India, which deal with diverse themes from religion to the environment, cultural studies to feminism. Together, these lively and challenging essays offer readings on how we understand India's history and, conversely, how we can use this comprehension of the past to interpret India's complex present.

Edited by Professor Neera Chandhoke, 'Mapping Histories' is a fitting tribute to renowned historian Ravinder Kumar, well known for his pioneering work on the social consequences of colonial rule in India, and for founding the Centre for Contemporary Studies at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Here, Fellows of the centre present a collection of historical and contemporary studies on India, which deal with diverse themes from religion to the environment, cultural studies to feminism. Together, these lively and challenging essays offer readings on how we understand India's history and, conversely, how we can use this comprehension of the past to interpret India's complex present.

Tarot has never been so interesting and easy to use. This vibrant Deck of 78 cards comes with meanings printed on each card, saving the hassle to referring to the book. This deck can be used by anyone as it is The 'One Stop Solution to every question'.