Class-tested and coherent, this textbook teaches classical and web information retrieval, including web search and the related areas of text classification and text clustering from basic concepts. It gives an up-to-date treatment of all aspects of the design and implementation of systems for gathering, indexing, and searching documents; methods for evaluating systems; and an introduction to the use of machine learning methods on text collections. All the important ideas are explained using examples and figures, making it perfect for introductory courses in information retrieval for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in computer science. Based on feedback from extensive classroom experience, the book has been carefully structured in order to make teaching more natural and effective. Slides and additional exercises (with solutions for lecturers) are also available through the book's supporting website to help course instructors prepare their lectures.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 12th Mexican Conference on Pattern Recognition, MCPR 2020, which was due to be held in Morelia, Mexico, in June 2020. The conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 31 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 67 submissions. They were organized in the following topical sections: pattern recognition techniques; image processing and analysis; computer vision; industrial and medical applications of pattern recognition; natural language processing and recognition; artificial intelligence techniques and recognition.

Few composition scholars two decades ago would have imagined the rate at which their field is now developing, expanding beyond its boundaries, creating new alliances, and locating new sites for research and generation of knowledge. In their introduction to this volume, Farris and Anson argue that, faced with a welter of competing models, compositionists too quickly dichotomize and dismiss. The contributors to Under Construction, therefore, address themselves to the need for commerce among competing visions of the field. They represent diverse settings and distinct points.

"Eduardo Kac's work represents a turning point. What it questions is our current attitudes to creativity, taking that word in its most fundamental sense." -Edward Lucie-Smith, author of Visual Arts in the 20th Century "His works introduce a vital new meaning into what had been known as the creative process while at the same time investing the notion of the artist-inventor with an original social and ethical responsibility." -Frank Popper, author of Origins and Development of Kinetic Art "Kac's radical approach to the creation and presentation of the body as a wet host for artificial memory and 'site-specific' work raises a variety of important questions that range from the status of memory in digital culture to the ethical dilemmas we are facing in the age of bioengineering and tracking technology." -Christiane Paul, Whitney Museum of Art For nearly two decades Eduardo Kac has been at the cutting edge of media art, first inventing early online artworks for the web and continuously developing new art forms that involve telecommunications and robotics as a new platform for art. Interest in telepresence, also known as telerobotics, exploded in the 1990s, and remains an important development in media art. Since that time, Kac has increasingly moved into the fields of biology and biotechnology. Telepresence and Bio Art is the first book to document the evolution of bio art and the aesthetic development of Kac, the creator of the "artist's gene" as well as the controversial glow-in-the-dark, genetically engineered rabbit Alba. Kac covers a broad range of topics within media art, including telecommunications media, interactive systems and the Internet, telematics and robotics, and the contact between electronic art and biotechnology. Addressing emerging and complex topics, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary art.

Called a “masterpiece” in a starred review from School Library Journal, award-winning author Chris Crutcher’s acclaimed Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes is an enduring classic. This bestselling novel is about love, loyalty, and friendship in the face of adversity. “Superb plotting, extraordinary characters, and cracking narrative make this novel unforgettable.”—Publishers Weekly Sarah Byrnes and Eric Calhoune have been friends for years. When they were children, his weight and her scars made them both outcasts. Now Sarah Byrnes—the smartest, toughest person Eric has ever known—sits silent in a hospital. Eric must uncover the terrible secret she’s hiding before its dark current pulls them both under. Will appeal to fans of Marieke Nijkamp, Andrew Smith, and John Corey Whaley. “Once again, Chris Crutcher plunges his readers into life's tough issues within a compelling story filled with human compassion . . . with his characteristic intelligence, humor, and empathy."—ALAN Review An American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults

Somatic psychology and bodymind therapy (the simultaneous study of the mind and body) are challenging contemporary understandings of the psyche, of what it means to be human and how to heal human suffering.

At the height of the first Cold War in the early 1950s, the Western powers worried that occupied Austria might become 'Europe's Korea' and feared a Communist takeover. The Soviets exploited their occupation zone for maximum reparations. American economic aid guaranteed Austria's survival and economic reconstruction. Their military assistance turned Austria into a 'secret ally' of the West. Austrian diplomacy played a vital role in securing the Austrian treaty in bilateral negotiations with Stalin's successors in the Kremlin demonstrating the leverage of the weak in the Cold War.