The Cassandra Group

In this speculative socio-political novel, a prestigious think tank—The Cassandra Group—led by a military historian general is aiding the president of the United States behind the scenes in sensitive negotiations with a foreign leader. As part of the plan, three brilliant young predictive historians in the Cassandra Group are assigned to devise a way to uncover the foreign nation’s hidden ICBM launch sites. Cassandra has devised a way to locate these “missing” sites by supporting a spin-off group called The Searchers composed mostly of women with highly unusual talents and time-tested old fashioned strategies. But they work. Too well, perhaps. Then bad stuff happens and everything gets messy as each hidden launch site is located. Is The Cassandra Group helping or merely meddling with history? Does this information help with the president’s negotiations? Or is it too late? Will both countries be hit hard? he Cassandra Group will tell you its truth—but you may not want to believe it. Shame on you.

While struggling to cope with major changes in her life, fourteen-year-old Cassandra decides to help others by using her ability to see what animals are thinking, beginning with finding a lost cat.

Two science fiction masters—Jack McDevitt and Mike Resnick—team up to deliver a classic thriller in which one man uncovers the hidden history of the United States space program… “Houston, we have a problem…” Formerly a cynical, ambitious PR man, Jerry Culpepper finally found a client he could believe in when he was hired as NASA’s public affairs director. Proud of the Agency’s history and sure of its destiny, he was thrilled to be a part of its future. But public disinterest and budget cuts changed that future. Now, a half century after the first Moon landing, Jerry feels like the only one with stars in his eyes. Then a fifty-year-old secret about the Apollo XI mission is revealed, and he finds himself embroiled in the biggest controversy of the twenty-first century, one that will test his ability—and his willingness—to spin the truth about a conspiracy of reality-altering proportions...

Anne Cortez and her son Mark were on a cruise of Scandinavia and Russia, when they witnessed a shooting. Untoward violence seemed to occur around a fellow passenger, Dr. Fawzi Senawi, an Iranian nuclear physicist. Anne and Mark tried to avoid Senawi; but could they turn their back on a dying man's plea that they save his kidnapped son? Acting on a clue, Anne surmised that this was connected to the release of the Stuxnet cyberworm' by the USA. This malware was supposed to deter the Iranian nuclear program. Anne and Mark sought the help of the past counter-terrorism czar and other would be patriots, but they are drawn into a deepening web of international intrigue. Could they avert the repercussions of a cyberwar that would disrupt our financial, electrical, and defense systems; and would make possible the prediction that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would fall to triple digits in 2016?

The book is aimed at intermediate developers with an understanding of core database concepts who want to become a master at implementing Cassandra for their application.

Build efficient, high-performance & scalable systems to process large volumes of data with Apache Ignite Key FeaturesUnderstand Apache Ignite's in-memory technologyCreate High-Performance app components with IgniteBuild a real-time data streaming and complex event processing systemBook Description Apache Ignite is a distributed in-memory platform designed to scale and process large volume of data. It can be integrated with microservices as well as monolithic systems, and can be used as a scalable, highly available and performant deployment platform for microservices. This book will teach you to use Apache Ignite for building a high-performance, scalable, highly available system architecture with data integrity. The book takes you through the basics of Apache Ignite and in-memory technologies. You will learn about installation and clustering Ignite nodes, caching topologies, and various caching strategies, such as cache aside, read and write through, and write behind. Next, you will delve into detailed aspects of Ignite’s data grid: web session clustering and querying data. You will learn how to process large volumes of data using compute grid and Ignite’s map-reduce and executor service. You will learn about the memory architecture of Apache Ignite and monitoring memory and caches. You will use Ignite for complex event processing, event streaming, and the time-series predictions of opportunities and threats. Additionally, you will go through off-heap and on-heap caching, swapping, and native and Spring framework integration with Apache Ignite. By the end of this book, you will be confident with all the features of Apache Ignite 2.x that can be used to build a high-performance system architecture. What you will learnUse Apache Ignite’s data grid and implement web session clusteringGain high performance and linear scalability with in-memory distributed data processingCreate a microservice on top of Apache Ignite that can scale and performPerform ACID-compliant CRUD operations on an Ignite cacheRetrieve data from Apache Ignite’s data grid using SQL, Scan and Lucene Text queryExplore complex event processing concepts and event streamingIntegrate your Ignite app with the Spring frameworkWho this book is for The book is for Big Data professionals who want to learn the essentials of Apache Ignite. Prior experience in Java is necessary.

The field of technical communication is rapidly expanding in both the academic world and the private sector, yet a problematic divide remains between theory and practice. Here Stuart A. Selber and Johndan Johnson-Eilola, both respected scholars and teachers of technical communication, effectively bridge that gap. Solving Problems in Technical Communication collects the latest research and theory in the field and applies it to real-world problems faced by practitioners—problems involving ethics, intercultural communication, new media, and other areas that determine the boundaries of the discipline. The book is structured in four parts, offering an overview of the field, situating it historically and culturally, reviewing various theoretical approaches to technical communication, and examining how the field can be advanced by drawing on diverse perspectives. Timely, informed, and practical, Solving Problems in Technical Communication will be an essential tool for undergraduates and graduate students as they begin the transition from classroom to career.