Introduction to adaptive optics

Sample

Robert K. Tyson

Adaptive optics systems and components have achieved a level of sophistication and simplicity that goes beyond traditional applications in astronomy and the military and into developments in medicine, manufacturing, and communications. This book was written for those interested in the multidisciplinary technology and those who need a broad-brush explanation without wading through thousands of journal articles. It follows the structure of a one-day tutorial taught by the author, including humor and sidebars of historical material.

Sample

Mark Twain

A young slave woman attempting to protect her son from the horrors of slavery, switches her light-skinned infant with the master's white son. *This novel features a literary first — the use of fingerprinting to solve a crime.*

Sample

Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Arturo Perez-Reverte has enthralled readers and criticsaround the globe with his Captain Alatriste series. Having sold four and a half million copies to date inthe Spanish-speaking world, the series has made Perez-Revertea literary superstar and his fictional seventeenth-century mercenarya national icon. The King’s Gold picks up in Seville, 1626. After serving withhonor at the bloody siege of Breda, Captain Alatriste and hisprotege, Inigo Balboa, have returned: battle-weary, short ofcash, and with few prospects for honest work. But the Spanishempire is as dangerous as ever, and it’s not long before Alatristereceives an intriguing offer of short-term employment. He andInigo must recruit a dozen swordsmen and mercenaries for arisky job involving a dazzling amount of contraband gold anda heavily guarded Spanish galleon returning from the WestIndies. The offer comes from the king himself, for at stake isnothing less than the Spanish Crown, and its dominion over thewealth of the Americas. The seedy taverns, the teeming prisons of Seville, the sanddunes of Guadalquivir find Alatriste, Inigo, and their motleyband of cutthroats embarking on a new adventure, one thatbrings them surprising new alliances and perilous encounterswith old enemies.

Sample

Richard Rudnicki

In Nova Scotia during the depression, Dot's family is having a hard time. Her father has work, but her mother is terribly sick, and there is barely enough money to make ends meet, let alone to get a lot of presents this Christmas. Dot sees a beautiful dollhouse that is being raffled away, but her family doesn't even have a dollar to spend there so she can enter the contest.