Kirjahaku

Our motivation for writing this book was a dissatisfaction with the many books with titles hke Foundations of Statistics. These books provide a needed description of the subject with examples of various statistical methods; but they do not satisfy the discerning reader because they do not explain why certain conclusions may be drawn from certain data and they do not discuss how statistics, the subject, meshes with the scientific process. We naively set out to fill in these gaps, but the situation is not so simple. What is desired is a tool—the one true statistics—which can be applied to data with certainty to justify conclusions, but what is available, in fact, are various competing theories of statistics. The careful reader may correctly point out the relation of this manuscript to po- modem epistemology, a philosophy which emphasizes that all human knowing—in fields as diverse as religion and science—is culture dependent and that therefore "truth" is not absolute. Take, for example, the "truths" of Christianity and Islam— wars have been fought over their differences. In the field of statistics there are, for example, Bayesians and sampling theorists. Carson (2003) states, "Surely it is better, postmodems tell us, to encourage insights that flow from many different perspectives. . . " In statistics, postmodernism is manifest at two levels. First, the findings of statistical applications are not about the true state of nature but about models of experiments on nature.

A BUSLOAD OF AMERICAN TOURISTS IS KIDNAPPED AND HELD FOR RANSOM IN GUATEMALAAs a sadistic killer holds a group of archaeology buffs hostage deep in the jungle, one of the tourists escapes. Paul Silver came on this trip to learn about the ancient ruins at Piedras Negras, a site that may hold secrets from twelve thousand years ago. For now his objectives are set aside. He has to plan a rescue. The captives - his friends - are so far from civilization that their release could put them in more peril than before. The Guatemalan jungle is a dangerous place, full of predators as frightening as the rebels themselves. Paul can't act quickly enough to save everyone from the rogue guerilla and his men but as the murderer announces his next victims, Paul must move, regardless of the dangers.He rescues Hailey Knox, a beautiful archaeology student who discovers a connection at Piedras Negras linking two ancient civilizations to this part of the Americas - the same mysterious connection that Paul Silver came here to find. After Paul deals with the rebels, Hailey shows him a cave where an astonishing wall and a secret chamber will reveal how and why an Egyptian pharaoh was doomed to eternity in hell.

HAS A NAZI GOLD TRAIN BEEN HIDDEN IN A MOUNTAIN TUNNEL SINCE WORLD WAR II?Paul Silver, an international businessman and amateur adventurer, arrives in Berlin looking for information about a fabled Nazi train full of priceless objects and gold. Along with answers he finds a deranged man who hated him in the past, a man who wants revenge more than life itself. There have been rumors for decades about a train filled with so much wealth it could fund Hitler's dream of a Fourth Reich. A Romanian family believes its patriarch, one of Hitler's trusted officers, possesses a coded diary - a book that will lead to vast treasure hidden somewhere in Europe at the end of the war.Paul soon learns nothing is as it should be. A hundred-year-old murderer, a gypsy fortune-teller, a trio of greedy relatives and a search for the mysterious Nazi train lead Paul Silver on the most exciting adventure of his life.

NOT SINCE 9/11 . . .One evening in the midst of prime-time programming, networks worldwide interrupt to announce that Air Force Two, a Boeing 747 carrying the Vice President and Secretary of State of the USA, has disappeared after leaving Honolulu, Hawaii on a flight to Hong Kong. An extensive search and rescue effort will soon be underway. President William Henry Harrison IV hears the news aboard Air Force One as he flies with his wife and children from the Caribbean to Dallas. The president's plane changes course, heading now to a secure military installation in Florida.Then the unthinkable happens. Twenty minutes after the first plane disappeared, Air Force One vanishes too. Its last reported location was over the deepest part of the Caribbean Sea, an area known as the Cayman Trench. These two incidents, now unmistakably part of a single plan, harken back to that terrible morning on 9/11 when one tragic crash became two, then three, and the world realized it was all part of a massive terrorism plot.In Washington, Speaker of the House Chambliss T. Parkes, a greedy, vulgar buffoon, is rushed to a secret location as the nation goes to DEFCON 1, the highest threat level, for the first time in history. If the planes are truly gone, Parkes will become President of the United States.As financial markets crash, rioters take to the streets and mass hysteria threatens to destroy the framework of free-world government, the CIA must find answers. Were the two most secure aircraft in the world sabotaged? How could it have been anything else? But how could it have happened? Who is behind it and why? Brian Sadler, a wealthy adventurer and the missing President's closest friend, becomes part of the mission to uncover a plot with worldwide implications. What could possibly get worse?

Seventeen-year-old Nate Dax sometimes asks himself if a person can die who's never been alive. He's an Outcast - he doesn't have a government chip so the authorities don't know he exists. But if they find him he'll be put to death immediately. Today it's 2094 and Nate hides in what used to be called Colorado when the United States was a country.Everything that's wrong now started with the disastrous presidential election of 2016, when most Americans didn't like either candidate. Four years later the people revolted, tossing out the incumbent and voting for a social democracy that lasted for twenty years. That election - the one in 2040 - was the last in America. Two years later came the disasters. Doomsday prophets called them God's wrath, but they were simply natural phenomena on an unthinkable scale. The Pacific earthquakes and tsunamis killed millions and weakened the San Andreas Fault. The Big One struck with fury, obliterating southern California. America floundered as its leaders helplessly wondered how to respond to such destruction. Others watched too, pleased at what was happening. Soon the enemies of the once-mighty nation took advantage of America's weakness and struck. The Great War of 2042 - also called the Twenty-Minute War - was a terrible demonstration of what concentrated nuclear war can do and it brought down America and the world as it had been. Nations were abolished and the World Union assumed control of planet Earth.What the government did regarding population control is one reason why Outcasts exist. But how can Outcasts like Nate live when they can't buy or sell anything, go into a store, attend a football game or go to school?When Nate's mother and father disappear he thinks he knows what's happened. He has to save them in a world where Outcasts like him will be killed if they're captured. Are there others like him out there ... people who can help? Nate Dax must find out.

2019 FIRST PLACE EVVY AWARD FOR ACTION/ADVENTURE & THIRD PLACE EVVY AWARD FOR HORROR VOODOONew Orleans is one of America's most unusual and interesting cities. Some of its residents go about their lives just as everyone else does, but there is one startling difference - they are practitioners of the Dark Arts.These people have extraordinary powers. They can cast spells, hex their enemies, compel others to do their bidding and even kill those whom they wish to harm.Many of the city's founders came from Haiti. One brought an ancient relic - a mystical object called the Black Cross that once belonged to Christopher Columbus. There were rumors it was a voodoo artifact, one that could prolong life for centuries. That cross disappeared hundreds of years ago.Brian Sadler hears an intriguing story from an old friend in New Orleans - a tale that could reveal the whereabouts of the cross. His friend enlists Brian to go to Haiti and Guatemala, where he encounters two Americans - an old man and a child - who are conducting a seminar on rejuvenation. Hidden in a cavern, Brian watches a secret ceremony and learns a shocking truth.Desperate people will risk anything to possess the ancient relic and access its powers. Brian soon discovers that neither friends nor enemies are what they seem. His search for the fabled Black Cross of Columbus becomes a race to save his own life in the shadowy world of voodoo.

The Halloween The Town Will Never Forget The Galvin family has the least normal household in the sleepy beach community of Marston since Uncle Bob came to stay after their mom died. The family's secrets are hard to keep hidden from the people in town who whisper about strange happenings at their house. Life becomes very interesting for Bobby Galvin as his unusual uncle embarks on a quest to prove an ancient legend about nearby Gunners Cove, rumored for centuries to be the place pirates hid their fortunes.A secret mission and an exciting search lead Bobby and his uncle to an astonishing discovery one Halloween night as they learn the true meaning of The Legend of Gunners Cove.

2019 INDEPENDENT BOOK AWARD WINNER FOR POLITICAL THRILLER & RELIGION-FICTION For over two thousand years there have been whispered rumors of a vast treasure hidden somewhere in Israel. Using the prophecies of Isaiah as their basis, many believe there is a cavern where a thousand golden objects - the sacred relics of the Second Temple - lay strewn about in disarray where they were hurriedly tossed the night the Romans burned Jerusalem.Television personality and antiquities dealer Brian Sadler and his wife arrive in Jerusalem and find danger and uncertainty everywhere they go. In a controversial move, the U.S. president has moved the American embassy to West Jerusalem, inciting riots and anger from the Palestinians.Brian's colleague, a Syrian who owns a shop in the Old City, offers to show him a cache of wondrous objects, but everything isn't as it appears. Brian questions if the treasure exists and in a dank underground room, he learns that danger and deceit must be overcome before he can learn the answer. He faces both a ruthless terrorist and someone he once trusted, both of whom want the same things he does. If the words of the Bible are correct and if Isaiah's prophecy is about to be fulfilled, who will find the hidden treasure of Jerusalem's Second Temple? An imminent war and a kidnapping put Brian's mission in peril. It's a race to find the relics before ISIS does, and the sacred icons are lost forever.

2019 INDEPENDENT BOOK AWARDS WINNER FOR HORROR 2019 SILVER IPPY AWARD FOR HORROR 2018 FIRST PLACE EVVY AWARD WINNER FOR HORROR Deep in the Louisiana bayou, an ancient mansion sits empty and abandoned.Callie Pilantro inherits the house and finds a mysterious child there who appears and disappears at will.Even the walls of the mansion hold long-forgotten secrets.Get your copy today Follow Callie as she struggles to find the secrets of her house even as someone or something tries to stop her. It all ends one eerie night. Will it be too late for Callie?Buy it now

2019 INDEPENDENT BOOK AWARD WINNER FOR PARANORMAL ACTIVITY & REGIONAL FICTION 2019 EVVY AWARD WINNER FOR HORROR A house that sat empty for fifty years as its dead owner instructed. A locked room with no key. A single father with eight-year-old twin girls. A nursery from long, long ago that no child ever played in.There are eerie things going on at The Arbors in St. Francisville, Louisiana. Architect Jordan Blanchard is joined by his friend Callie Pilantro ("Callie - The Bayou Hauntings 1") and Landry Drake ("Forgotten Men - The Bayou Hauntings 2") to learn the secrets of a domineering matriarch whose two husbands died in bizarre ways. They explore the house as someone watches from a hidden place high above. The Nursery, the third book in the series, will keep you up late at night wondering what's behind the next door, what lies beyond the mirror and who hides and waits at The Arbors.

Everything's been quiet in the bayou town of Jeanerette, Louisiana for years. The last big news was when those rich people burned to death at their plantation in 2003. Most people have forgotten the details, but no one can forget Amelia House, the beautiful old home on Bayou Teche where the Morisset family lived.Craig Morisset grew up in Jeanerette and started a company when he was in college. He sold it for almost a billion dollars and became the town's most talked-about product. When his parents died in the fire, he never returned and didn't even afford them a funeral. Instead, he ordered Amelia House shuttered. Since then, only the occasional caretaker goes inside, and they make sure to be out before nightfall.For years people have whispered about the awful things Craig's parents did in the name of science, and some brave teenagers who went up to the house after dark reported ghostly wails coming from somewhere on the upper floors. Famous ghost hunter Landry Drake comes home to Jeanerette to interview Craig, who is in town for a class reunion. Craig regrets coming back and when a hurricane heads their way, he makes a fatal mistake. Since they have no place to stay, he invites three classmates and Landry to spend a night inside Amelia House. The mansion may have been closed up for years, but Craig's mother and father have patiently waited to resume their life's work. The operating room's all prepared; all they need is a patient. When Craig and his friends arrive, they can at last resume the experiments.

The most haunted building in the French Quarter holds dark secrets. Legends say there were murders here long ago. When a paranormal expert investigates, the forces of evil descend upon an ancient courtyard to stop him dead. Deep in the heart of New Orleans' French Quarter there's an old building on Toulouse Street. People say it's haunted. They hear strange things at night - eerie moans and wails from tiny windows up on the roof. They see flickering lights too, like someone's moving about inside. But no one's been in there for years.A woman on her first trip to Louisiana takes a French Quarter ghost tour. She sees the darkened structure and realizes it's the source of terrifying dreams since her childhood. She goes home but is inexplicably drawn back time and time again to this old building that holds frightening truths for her.Paranormal investigator Landry Drake arranges a hypnosis session in the building's courtyard, where according to legend the worst of the atrocities happened within these walls. As the woman is transported back in time - to her childhood and even beyond - the reality of the Toulouse Street hauntings becomes clear. As Landry tries to unravel the mystery, people die. Will there be more before the truth becomes clear? Can he stop whatever it is that haunts the building?

COULD FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD NOAH PROCTOR HAVE SLAUGHTERED HIS FAMILY IN THEIR BEDS, ARRANGED THEIR BODIES ON A COUCH AND PUT THEIR HEADS ON THE MANTEL?EVERYONE IN TOWN THINKS SO, BUT NOAH'S NOT TALKING.Proctor Hall is one of Lafourche Parish's oldest sugarcane plantations. After Noah supposedly murdered his parents and little sister in 1963, he went off to an institution while caretakers maintained the place. Twenty-six years later, the man who never spoke returned home. A girl disappears and people believe Noah's up to his old tricks.Four college students visit the now-abandoned farmhouse as part of a class project, and they fall victim to whoever -- or whatever -- still resides within its walls. Famous paranormal investigator Landry drake conducts a seance there, uncovers long-hidden secrets and learns that the horror of Proctor Hall is still at work.

oThe Pope hears the confession of a senior official of the Vatican Bank. What he learns could shake the foundations of the Christian faith.oA suicide bomber destroys a Fifth Avenue antiquities gallery. A dozen people die and an eighteenth-century manuscript is whisked away. Who went to such lengths to obtain an old Knights Templars diary, and why?oA Mafia godfather with a deadly agenda escapes from a Guatemalan prison and plots revenge on those who put him there.oA Cardinal decodes pages of ancient symbols to learn the secret of Oak Island and its enigmatic Money Pit.In 1795 three teenage boys dug in an old pit on Oak Island in Nova Scotia, Canada. They wanted to find out whose engineering expertise created a shaft nearly two hundred feet deep and if it contained treasure as the local people believed. The boys eventually gave up but syndicate after syndicate was formed over the next two hundred years to find the answer to its secrets.Millions of dollars were spent and several lives were lost in the treasure hunt. None of the searchers found riches. A mysterious rock inscribed with a symbolic clue turned up. It said, "Forty feet below two million pounds are buried." But as excavations in the pit went deeper and deeper those backing the project faced bitter frustration. A set of elaborate traps caused the Money Pit to flood each time someone neared the prize at the bottom. Brian Sadler and a devious Cardinal of the church are pitted against each other in a race to learn secrets protected by the Knights Templars for a thousand years. A former kingpin of the New York mob, dethroned and disgraced, plans a systematic elimination of his enemies. Sadler and his girlfriend Nicole Farber become targets of the ruthless killer as this story careens to its incredible conclusion. Does the Money Pit contain relics that could shake the very foundations of Christianity? The Pope himself becomes involved as Brian Sadler discovers the startling answer to the secret of Oak Island.

FIRST PLACE EVVY AWARD WINNER FOR FICTION Three artifacts from the Dead Sea caves. An eyewitness account of a night of wonders, written on an ancient scroll. Men who would kill to keep everything secret. Get your copy today Stockbroker-turned-amateur archaeologist Brian Sadler learns about a mysterious parchment written by a child. Knowing it would make him an instant success, Brian turns to a mobster for help to get it. Dealing with the mob means things must go exactly right - or you may lose your life.You'll keep turning pages as Brian jets from Dallas to New York, London and Egypt, trying to get the world's most important document before others can snatch it. Buy this book now

From the editor of the nation's premier birding magazine, a no-nonsense, no-fluff quick guide to the birds you see every day. Of all the classic American pastimes, perhaps none is as widely accessible as watching birds. Our unusually vast, diverse environmental landscape supports fascinating species and variations exclusive to each region of the country. But while birders often spend their efforts in search of the rarest creatures, some of the most beautiful and intriguing birds are the ones that frequent our backyards (or nearby) daily. For that reason, where other, larger volumes focus on bird types that the casual observer is never likely to encounter, "Southern Birds" concisely celebrates those species living under our very noses. Written by Bill Thompson III, the editor and co-publisher of "Bird Watcher's Digest," this portable 5"x8" book contains the same variety of entertaining and informative entries that make "Bird Watcher's Digest" the nation's most popular birding magazine. Inside, you'll find profiles of the 55 most common birds in the South, complete with large color photos, gender-specific physical descriptions, nesting and feeding information, bird call particulars, and interesting stories about each species. Thompson also introduces the reader to the basics of bird watching: essential gear, bird-friendly food and plantings, housing tips, and observational techniques. This guide covers North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, and eastern Texas. Look for our other backyard bird guides covering the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Northeast, and West regions of the United States.