James Kennedy

Traditional methods for creating intelligent computational systems have privileged private "internal" cognitive and computational processes. In contrast, Swarm Intelligence argues that human intelligence derives from the interactions of individuals in a social world and further, that this model of intelligence can be effectively applied to artificially intelligent systems. The authors first present the foundations of this new approach through an extensive review of the critical literature in social psychology, cognitive science, and evolutionary computation. They then show in detail how these theories and models apply to a new computational intelligence methodology—particle swarms—which focuses on adaptation as the key behavior of intelligent systems. Drilling down still further, the authors describe the practical benefits of applying particle swarm optimization to a range of engineering problems. Developed by the authors, this algorithm is an extension of cellular automata and provides a powerful optimization, learning, and problem solving method. This important book presents valuable new insights by exploring the boundaries shared by cognitive science, social psychology, artificial life, artificial intelligence, and evolutionary computation and by applying these insights to the solving of difficult engineering problems. Researchers and graduate students in any of these disciplines will find the material intriguing, provocative, and revealing as will the curious and savvy computing professional.

The music industry as you've never seen it before – from the bottom. Music. We all love it. We can't live without it! But what exactly is it? Why is it so awesome? And who are the mysterious figures who create it, perform it and keep us all stocked up with the good stuff? What's it really like to be in a band and just how bad is the music industry? In his new book, rock'n'roll underdog James Kennedy takes us on a tour through the hidden lives of the every-day musician – this isn’t hotel room trashing but how 99% of musicians live in the real world. Blowing away the usual mythologies and pulling no punches, Loud Medicine is a rough and ready rollercoaster ride – OK, transit van ride – into the secret world of the modern day musician. It’s also an exposé of music’s many enemies, a manifesto for change and a love letter to everyone’s favourite medicine. There will be rants, dramas, a cast of dysfunctionals, big ideas, industry scam shockers, truth-bombs, f-bombs, the likely crucifixion of a beloved music icon or two – and yes, of course, there will be road stories. So come and squeeze in amongst the drum cases and warm beers, and let’s hit the road!

Rev. Kennedy had landed in Calcutta on 19 January 1839, en route to Benares, where he had been appointed for doing missionary work. From 1868 to 1877, he was posted in Kumaon, where the Mission did some pioneering work including opening of schools, female education, building a leper’s asylum, sanitation work, etc. The amount of information it contains, descriptive, social, evangelistic missions and even political aspect, is astounding.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

A young woman's secretive midwestern town is engulfed by a mysterious plague of tornadoes every generation and she must escape it before it claims her. Stephen King s The Mist meets David Lynch s Twin Peaks in this surreal, mind-bending horror-thriller. In a small town tucked away in the midwestern corn fields, the adults whisper about Tornado Day. Our narrator, a high school sophomore, has never heard this phrase but she soon discovers its terrible meaning: a plague of sentient tornadoes is coming to destroy them. The only thing that stands between the town and total annihilation is a teen boy known as the tornado killer. Drawn to this enigmatic boy, our narrator senses an unnatural connection between them. But the adults are hiding a secret about the origins of the tornadoes and the true nature of the tornado killer and our narrator must escape before the primeval power that binds them all comes to claim her. Audaciously conceived and steeped in existential dread, this genre-defying fever dream of a novel reveals the mythbound madness at the heart of American life. Story Locale:Fictional Midwestern town.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1861.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1861.

Our narrator is the most talented salesperson at Dare to Know, an enigmatic company that has developed the technology to predict anyone s death down to the second. Divorced, estranged from his sons, and broke, he s driven to violate the cardinal rule of the business by forecasting his own death day. The problem: his prediction says he died twenty-three minutes ago. The only person who can confirm its accuracy is Julia, the woman he loved and lost during his rise up the ranks of Dare to Know. As he travels across the country to see her, he s forced to confront his past, the choices he s made, and the terrifying truth about the company he works for. Wildly ambitious and highly immersive, this thought-provoking thriller explores the destructive power of knowledge and collapses the boundaries between reality, myth, and conspiracy as it races toward its shocking conclusion.

A razor-smart sci-fi corporate noir nightmare. Dare to Know is what happens when Willy Loman sees through the Matrix. A heartbreaking, time-bending, galactic mindbender delivered in the mordantly funny clip of a doomed antihero. Daniel Kraus, co-author of The Shape of Water. Dark Matter meets Annihilation in this mind-bending and emotional speculative thriller set in a world where the exact moment of your death can be predicted for a price. Our narrator is the most talented salesperson at Dare to Know, an enigmatic company that has developed the technology to predict anyone s death down to the second. Divorced, estranged from his sons, and broke, he's driven to violate the cardinal rule of the business by forecasting his own death day. The problem: his prediction says he died twenty-three minutes ago. The only person who can confirm its accuracy is Julia, the woman he loved and lost during his rise up the ranks of Dare to Know. As he travels across the country to see her, he s forced to confront his past, the choices he's made, and the terrifying truth about the company he works for. Wildly ambitious and highly immersive, this mind-bending thriller explores the destructive power of knowledge and collapses the boundaries between reality, myth, and conspiracy as it races toward its shocking conclusion.

A razor-smart sci-fi corporate noir nightmare. Dare to Know is what happens when Willy Loman sees through the Matrix. A heartbreaking, time-bending, galactic mindbender delivered in the mordantly funny clip of a doomed antihero. Daniel Kraus, co-author of The Shape of Water. Dark Matter meets Annihilation in this mind-bending and emotional speculative thriller set in a world where the exact moment of your death can be predicted for a price. Our narrator is the most talented salesperson at Dare to Know, an enigmatic company that has developed the technology to predict anyone s death down to the second. Divorced, estranged from his sons, and broke, he's driven to violate the cardinal rule of the business by forecasting his own death day. The problem: his prediction says he died twenty-three minutes ago. The only person who can confirm its accuracy is Julia, the woman he loved and lost during his rise up the ranks of Dare to Know. As he travels across the country to see her, he s forced to confront his past, the choices he's made, and the terrifying truth about the company he works for. Wildly ambitious and highly immersive, this mind-bending thriller explores the destructive power of knowledge and collapses the boundaries between reality, myth, and conspiracy as it races toward its shocking conclusion.

Since the early 1990s, advances in toxicology have allowed scientists to detect traces of adulterant substances in everyday products – even down to parts per billion concentrations. We can now detect the presence of harmful ingredients at levels so low that they actually cause no harm. Nonetheless, we get scared. We are now able to overreact to harmless, negligible sources of contamination and flock to ‘natural’, ‘organic’ and ‘chemical-free’ alternative products at elevated prices instead. This urge is driven in part by a set of interesting psychological quirks called the naturalness preference or biophilia. While exposure to many aspects of nature improves our physical and mental wellbeing, marketers are taking advantage of our naturalness preference by selling us ‘organic’ and ‘natural’ products with no functional advantage, sometimes to the detriment of the environment, and that have the unfortunate added effect of peddling a fear of conventional products that do not make such natural connotations. This fear of chemicals, exaggerated by marketers, has led some of us to seek nature in the form of expensive consumer product, which offer almost none of the benefits of spending time outdoors in real nature (which is free of charge). We thus chase nature in the wrong form. We feel guilt, anxiety and mental stress from being coaxed into paying a hefty premium price for "natural" products that are neither safer nor more effective than conventional ones, and forget to appreciate real nature in the process. This book explores the history of chemical fears and the recent events that amplified it. It describes how consumers, teachers, doctors, lawmakers and journalists can help make better connections with the public by telling stories that are more engaging about chemistry and materials science. Written in a sympathetic way, this book explains both sides of the argument for anyone with an interest in science.

The tale that follows is not another cliched collection of rock'n'roll debaucheries (sorry) nor is it another tired fable of triumph over adversity (you're welcome). It's the story of a half-deaf kid from a tiny, remote village in South Wales who was hailed as a genius by the UK's biggest radio station and headhunted by major record labels, only for the music industry to collapse. It crashed hard, taking with it an entire generation of talented artists who would never now get their shot. CNN called it 'music's lost decade'. Along the way, there are goodies, baddies, gun-toting label execs, life-saving surgeons, therapy, true love, loyalty, hope, breakdowns, suicidal managers, betrayal, drummers and way too many hangovers. James Kennedy shows that the best lessons are to be learned from good losers. It really is all about the journey. Part memoir, part expose of the music world's murky underbelly, Noise Damage is emotional, painfully honest, funny, informative and ridiculous. It's also a celebration of the life-changing magic of music.