Veena will let nothing stand in her way to get her daughter back. Seven-year-old Molly has been snatched from her and dragged off to a secret military lab. Veena's clues have dried up, and now she's on the run. While fleeing, she stumbles upon an alien technology that could change everything, or at least give her a bargaining chip to trade for her daughter's freedom with—if only she could figure out how to make it work. But first she needs to rescue her husband. At least she knows where he is now...sort of. Trapped in a cave somewhere on a planet of inedible moss inhabited by a group of reclusive, unwelcoming Luddites. Chasing sparse clues, Veena and her crew race through a secret underground city, a run-down space station, across a glittering collection of floating islands and out into the void of deep space—all with a bounty hunter hot on their tail. Can she figure out how to use the alien technology before it's too late? Is it the answer to getting her daughter back? Find out in this race-across-the-galaxy sequel to Fractured Orbits.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms, ESA 2003, held in Budapest, Hungary, in September 2003. The 66 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 165 submissions. The scope of the papers spans the entire range of algorithmics from design and mathematical analysis issues to real-world applications, engineering, and experimental analysis of algorithms.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the Fifth International School and Symposium on Advanced Distributed Systems, ISSADS 2005, held in Guadalajara, Mexico in January 2005. The 50 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from over 100 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on database systems, distributed and parallel algorithms, real-time distributed systems, cooperative information systems, fault tolerance, information retrieval, modeling and simulation, wireless networks and mobile computing, artificial life and multi agent systems.

This book presents a systematic approach to analyze nature-inspired algorithms. Beginning with an introduction to optimization methods and algorithms, this book moves on to provide a unified framework of mathematical analysis for convergence and stability. Specific nature-inspired algorithms include: swarm intelligence, ant colony optimization, particle swarm optimization, bee-inspired algorithms, bat algorithm, firefly algorithm, and cuckoo search. Algorithms are analyzed from a wide spectrum of theories and frameworks to offer insight to the main characteristics of algorithms and understand how and why they work for solving optimization problems. In-depth mathematical analyses are carried out for different perspectives, including complexity theory, fixed point theory, dynamical systems, self-organization, Bayesian framework, Markov chain framework, filter theory, statistical learning, and statistical measures. Students and researchers in optimization, operations research, artificial intelligence, data mining, machine learning, computer science, and management sciences will see the pros and cons of a variety of algorithms through detailed examples and a comparison of algorithms.

This volume presents the logical arithmetical or computational procedures within communications systems that will ensure the solution to various problems. The authors comprehensively introduce the theoretical elements that are at the basis of the field of algorithms for communications systems. Various applications of these algorithms are then illustrated with particular attention to wired and wireless network access technologies. * Provides a complete treatment of algorithms for communications systems, rarely presented together * Introduces the theoretical background to digital communications and signal processing * Features numerous applications including advanced wireless modems and echo cancellation techniques * Includes useful reference lists at the end of each chapter Graduate students in the fields of Telecommunications and Electrical Engineering Researchers and Professionals in the area of Digital Communications, Signal Processing and Computer Engineering will find this book invaluable.

Beneath the surface details of our planet lies a numbers matrix, and somebody just stole its key, putting our world in jeopardy. In 2050, geomancers and Light grid engineers at the Hierophancy in Sun Valley, Idaho, perfected an algorithm that runs all the Earth’s psychic affairs. In 2065, somebody stole it. This is the account of how they got it back. They had to get it back because in the wrong hands, this math formula could take over or end the planet. The Hierophancy is a secret group that works with the planet’s subtle energy terrain. You’ll know its outer expression as a landscape of sacred sites. Their job is to reveal the Holy Light that comes out of these many nodes and to fix it when there’s a problem. Why? They’re Hierophants—think of them as engineers of the planet’s Light grid. In April 2065, they discovered there was problem, a big one. Hierophancy staff member Frederick Atkinson narrates what they did about it. It’s a fairly wild ride involving unsuspected levels of planetary reality, routine cooperation of extraterrestrial colleagues, lots of angels, Ascended Masters, and even a guest consultation with the Chief Architect of All Reality. The result is a concentrated detective hunt across time and space to find that stolen mathematics. The quest for the stolen arithmetic takes the team to sites in Bolivia, Canada, Japan, and Iceland and back to the planet’s earliest days and other key moments in its geomantic life as they probe the engineering intricacies that comprise the Earth’s esoteric reality. An awful lot is at stake—namely, the fate of five related planets across this and other galaxies because they’re directly tied into the Earth and they need those numbers back too.

I felt deeply honored when Professor Sumit Ghosh asked me to write the foreword to his book with an extraordinary perspective. I have long admired him, ?rst as a student leader at Stanford, where he initiated the ?rst IEEE Computer Society’s student chapter, and later as an esteemed and inspiring friend whose transdisciplinary research broadened and enhanced the horizons of practitioners of computer science and engineering, including my own. His ideas, which are derived from his profound vision, deep critical thinking, and personal intuition, reach from information technology to bioscience, as - hibited in this excellent book. To me, an ordinary engineer, it opens up a panoramic view of the Universe of Knowledge that keeps expanding and - spiring,likethegoodIndianproverb,whichsays,“agoodbookinformsyou,an excellent book teaches you, and a great book changes you. ” I sincerely believe that Professor Ghosh’s book will help us change and advance the methods of systems engineering and technology. Vision Inspired vision sees ahead of others what will or may come to be, a vivid, imagined concept or anticipation. An inspired vision personi?es what is good and what like-minded individuals hope for. Our vision is one of creating an Internet of minds, where minds are Web sites or knowledge centers, which create, store, and radiate knowledge through interaction with other minds connected by a universal shared network. This vision will not just hasten the death of distance, but will also - carcerate ignorance.