A nightmare he cannot escape… Before earning his position as a commander in the new empress's forces, Jun spent most of his life as a roaming mercenary, on the run from a past that holds his heart hostage. So when rumors of lust-eating demons emerge from the land of his youth, he embarks on a mission for redemption, only to find himself face to face with a woman he thought long dead—a woman who hasn't aged in twenty years. A curse she can't break… Magic has only ever betrayed Mikari, turning her own heart against her. Unable to trust herself or the true motives of the only man she's ever loved, Mikari knows the best way to protect them both is to push him away, lest he discover how broken she is beneath her jaded façade. An evil only they can face… But when Mikari and Jun are attacked and forced to spend the winter in the highlands of Gozu, they discover something far more sinister than demons may be behind the evil that surrounds them. And Mikari's curse could be the key to vanquishing it… ♥♥♥ At the Maze's Center is a full-length "dark lite" fantasy romance featuring demons, magic battles, and a steamy second-chance romance between two long-lost lovers who tragically reunite as enemies. If you like angsty slow burns, forced proximity, loads of spice, and a grumpy/sunshine vibe, you'll love At the Maze's Center!

Team building is a proven approach for helping people become respectful competitors, cooperative team members, and community leaders. Now you can help your students or group develop those same important skills with Essentials of Team Building: Principles and Practices. The authors, with two successful books on team building and 30 years of team-building experience, offer a day-by-day guide for implementing activities and challenges for individual sessions, units, or an entire semester. The activities and challenges are geared to beginning through advanced participants in a variety of settings, and they help participants develop the following valuable skills: à ̄¿Å"Problem solving à ̄¿Å"Appropriate risk taking à ̄¿Å"Building working relationships à ̄¿Å"Cooperation à ̄¿Å"Leadership and communication à ̄¿Å"Creative thinking à ̄¿Å"Building trust à ̄¿Å"Making decisions à ̄¿Å"Setting goals à ̄¿Å"Developing physical skills In chapters 1 and 2 the authors introduce the concept of team building, including its benefits, its connection with adventure education and community building, and the process involved in building a team. Chapters 3 and 4 provide assessment tools and safety strategies. Chapter 5 offers a sample college course outline in team building. You'll find icebreaker and community activities in chapter 6, and in chapters 7 through 9 you can choose from an array of introductory, intermediate, and advanced challenges. Chapter 10 provides character development and community-building challenges, and an appendix lays out challenge cards, useful forms, reports, and examples. In addition, Essentials of Team Building: Principles and Practices includes à ̄¿Å"58 activities and challenges for beginning through advanced teams; à ̄¿Å"reproducible forms for organizing, presenting, and evaluating team-building challenges; à ̄¿Å"ready-to-use unit and semester plans with evaluation tools for each activity; and à ̄¿Å"a bound-in DVD with video clips of 25 challenge demonstrations and reproducible challenge and organizer cards.

Although the number of commercial Java games is still small compared to those written in C or C++, the market is expanding rapidly. Recent updates to Java make it faster and easier to create powerful gaming applications-particularly Java 3D-is fueling an explosive growth in Java games. Java games like Puzzle Pirates, Chrome, Star Wars Galaxies, Runescape, Alien Flux, Kingdom of Wars, Law and Order II, Roboforge, Tom Clancy's Politika, and scores of others have earned awards and become bestsellers.Java developers new to graphics and game programming, as well as game developers new to Java 3D, will find Killer Game Programming in Java invaluable. This new book is a practical introduction to the latest Java graphics and game programming technologies and techniques. It is the first book to thoroughly cover Java's 3D capabilities for all types of graphics and game development projects.Killer Game Programming in Java is a comprehensive guide to everything you need to know to program cool, testosterone-drenched Java games. It will give you reusable techniques to create everything from fast, full-screen action games to multiplayer 3D games. In addition to the most thorough coverage of Java 3D available, Killer Game Programming in Java also clearly details the older, better-known 2D APIs, 3D sprites, animated 3D sprites, first-person shooter programming, sound, fractals, and networked games. Killer Game Programming in Java is a must-have for anyone who wants to create adrenaline-fueled games in Java.

Discusses how a dog's body works, how it perceives the world, how it communicates and responds, and dogs' health concerns. Includes related activities and experiments.

Artificial Intelligence Illuminated presents an overview of the background and history of artificial intelligence, emphasizing its importance in today's society and potential for the future. The book covers a range of AI techniques, algorithms, and methodologies, including game playing, intelligent agents, machine learning, genetic algorithms, and Artificial Life. Material is presented in a lively and accessible manner and the author focuses on explaining how AI techniques relate to and are derived from natural systems, such as the human brain and evolution, and explaining how the artificial equivalents are used in the real world. Each chapter includes student exercises and review questions, and a detailed glossary at the end of the book defines important terms and concepts highlighted throughout the text.

Provides materials for eight Saturday workshops to excite teenagers about the possibilities and fun of mathematics. Each chapter begins with detailed historical and mathematical information on the subject for delivering a talk, then lists exercises for small group work. Topics include network theory for mazes, trigonometry for sundials, the design of castles, and code breaking. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR