During the last years there has been an increasing interest in the area of service robots. Under this category we find robots working in tasks such as elderly care, guiding, office and domestic assistance, inspection, and many more. Service robots usually work in indoor environments designed for humans, with offices and houses being some of the most typical examples. These environments are typically divided into places with different functionalities like corridors, rooms or doorways. The ability to learn such semantic categories from sensor data enables a mobile robot to extend its representation of the environment, and to improve its capabilities. As an example, natural language terms like corridor or room can be used to indicate the position of the robot in a more intuitive way when communicating with humans. This book presents several approaches to enable a mobile robot to categorize places in indoor environments. The categories are indicated by terms which represent the different regions in these environments. The objective of this work is to enable mobile robots to perceive the spatial divisions in indoor environments in a similar way as people do. This is an interesting step forward to the problem of moving the perception of robots closer to the perception of humans. Many approaches introduced in this book come from the area of pattern recognition and classification. The applied methods have been adapted to solve the specific problem of place recognition. In this regard, this work is a useful reference to students and researchers who want to introduce classification techniques to help solve similar problems in mobile robotics.

Warner Bros Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Oscar Martin - the renowned writer and artist behind Tom and Jerry comics - brings his own imaginative take on a dystopian world of anthropomorphic animals in this breath-taking sequel to the hit graphic novel, Solo: Survivors of Chaos. Warner Bros Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Oscar Martin, creates a unique dystopian world of chaos, where every day is a fight to survive. In a future ravaged by nuclear wars, the Earth has given birth to an array of new mutated species, which have grown and repopulated the land. But this new world is far from peaceful, and life in it is often short and brutal... To make life easier for his poor family, Solo, a young rat, left his home to become a warrior. Contending with vicious animals and savage hunters, Solo does everything he can to survive. This action-packed, heart-breaking sequel sees Solo's world turned upside-down once again.

This book is a short primer in engineering mathematics with a view on applications in nonlinear control theory. In particular, it introduces some elementary concepts of commutative algebra and algebraic geometry which offer a set of tools quite different from the traditional approaches to the subject matter. This text begins with the study of elementary set and map theory. Chapters 2 and 3 on group theory and rings, respectively, are included because of their important relation to linear algebra, the group of invertible linear maps (or matrices) and the ring of linear maps of a vector space. Homomorphisms and Ideals are dealt with as well at this stage. Chapter 4 is devoted to the theory of matrices and systems of linear equations. Chapter 5 gives some information on permutations, determinants and the inverse of a matrix. Chapter 6 tackles vector spaces over a field, Chapter 7 treats linear maps resp. linear transformations, and in addition the application in linear control theory of some abstract theorems such as the concept of a kernel, the image and dimension of vector spaces are illustrated. Chapter 8 considers the diagonalization of a matrix and their canonical forms. Chapter 9 provides a brief introduction to elementary methods for solving differential equations and, finally, in Chapter 10, nonlinear control theory is introduced from the point of view of differential algebra.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Economist & The Financial Times One day a few years ago, 300 migrants were kidnapped between the remote desert towns of Altar, Mexico, and Sasabe, Arizona. A local priest got 120 released, many with broken ankles and other marks of abuse, but the rest vanished. Oscar Martinez, a young writer from El Salvador, was in Altar soon after the abduction, and his account of the migrant disappearances is only one of the harrowing stories he garnered from two years spent traveling up and down the migrant trail from Central America and across the US border. More than a quarter of a million Central Americans make this increasingly dangerous journey each year, and each year as many as 20,000 of them are kidnapped. Martinez writes in powerful, unforgettable prose about clinging to the tops of freight trains; finding respite, work and hardship in shelters and brothels; and riding shotgun with the border patrol. Illustrated with stunning full-color photographs, The Beast is the first book to shed light on the harsh new reality of the migrant trail in the age of the narcotraficantes.

As a boy, Miguel Angel Tobar fled a small town in El Salvador torn apart by warring guerrillas and US-backed death squads. As a teen in Los Angeles, he fought discrimination and beatings by joining a gang, MS-13. By the time the US deported him to San Salvador, the Hollywood Kid joined a wave of US-bred gangsters, whose violence-in concert with corrupt offiicals-have in turn helped propel new waves of refugees. The incomparable Salvadoran journalist Oscar Martinez got to know the Hollywood Kid and met with him as he first turned on MS-13, killing gang members, and then in turn was assassinated by other gang members. In intensely vivid scenes, Martinez and his anthropologist brother Juan tell the story of a violent life and death-and of the geopolitical forces that propelled a country into becoming one of the most violent on earth.

El Salvador and Honduras have had the highest homicide rates in the world over the past ten years, with Guatemala close behind. Every day more than 1,000 people-men, women, and children-flee these three countries for North America. Oscar Martinez, author of The Beast, named one of the best books of the year by the Economist, Mother Jones, and the Financial Times, fleshes out these stark figures with true stories, producing a jarringly beautiful and immersive account of life in deadly locations. Martinez travels to Nicaraguan fishing towns, southern Mexican brothels where Central American women are trafficked, isolated Guatemalan jungle villages, and crime-ridden Salvadoran slums. With his precise and empathetic reporting, he explores the underbelly of these troubled places. He goes undercover to drink with narcos, accompanies police patrols, rides in trafficking boats and hides out with a gang informer. The result is an unforgettable portrait of a region of fear and a subtle analysis of the North American roots and reach of the crisis, helping to explain why this history of violence should matter to all of us.

The story of a little girl with three brothers who, at times, feels out of place. She is the little sister who tries to make everyone feel happy, with a heart of pure gold. Join her as she travels to the strange land of the Jelly Wods. Once you read, you will see there's a little Nija and the Jelly Wods in all of us