Bryla's Amazing Imagination


Book Description

Bryla's Amazing Imagination: Bryla Visits the Moon is centered on a 6-year old little girl named Bryla, who has a natural fascination for astronomy. Each night, Bryla's fascination grows stronger for the Moon, and playing games of hide-and-seek just aren't enough. Bryla desires to visit the Moon but doesn't know how to reach the galaxy from her suburban home. After explaining her desires to her mother, she teaches Bryla the importance of using imagination to make dreams come true.




Bryla's Amazing Imagination


Book Description

Bryla's Amazing Imagination: Bryla Visits the Moon is centered on a 6-year old little girl named Bryla, who has a natural fascination for astronomy. Each night, Bryla's fascination grows stronger for the Moon, and playing games of hide-and-seek just aren't enough. Bryla desires to visit the Moon but doesn't know how to reach the galaxy from her suburban home. After explaining her desires to her mother, she teaches Bryla the importance of using imagination to make dreams come true. Bryla uses her creative energy to go on an incredible adventure to the Milk Way and play with the moon among the stars.




Why Gesture?


Book Description

Co-speech gestures are ubiquitous: when people speak, they almost always produce gestures. Gestures reflect content in the mind of the speaker, often under the radar and frequently using rich mental images that complement speech. What are gestures doing? Why do we use them? This book is the first to systematically explore the functions of gesture in speaking, thinking, and communicating – focusing on the variety of purposes served for the gesturer as well as for the viewer of gestures. Chapters in this edited volume present a range of diverse perspectives (including neural, cognitive, social, developmental and educational), consider gestural behavior in multiple contexts (conversation, narration, persuasion, intervention, and instruction), and utilize an array of methodological approaches (including both naturalistic and experimental). The book demonstrates that gesture influences how humans develop ideas, express and share those ideas to create community, and engineer innovative solutions to problems.




Images of China in Polish and Serbian Travel Writings (1720-1949)


Book Description

In Images of China in Polish and Serbian Travel Writings (1720-1949), Tomasz Ewertowski examines how Polish and Serbian travelers from the 18th to the mid-20th century described China, showing various factors which influenced their representations of the Middle Kingdom.




Making Finance Work for Africa


Book Description

Drawing on its extensive experience in helping restructure and reform financial systems, the World Bank examines the state of African domestic financial systems in a global comparison. It identifies promising trends as well as pinpointing the major shortcomings that are observed across sub-Saharan Africa. Policy recommendations distinguish between those designed to make finance a more effective driver of economic growth and those designed to give low income, small-scale and other excluded groups better access to financial services.




Light From Uncommon Stars


Book Description

Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in Ryka Aoki's Light From Uncommon Stars, a defiantly joyful adventure set in California's San Gabriel Valley, with cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship over fresh-made donuts. Hugo Award Finalist A National Bestseller Indie Next Pick New York Public Library Top 10 Book of 2021 A Kirkus Best Book of 2021 A Barnes & Noble Best Science Fiction Book of 2021 2022 Alex Award Winner 2022 Stonewall Book Award Winner Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate. But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn't have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan's kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul's worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline. As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




Mastering Oculus Rift Development


Book Description

Explore the new frontier of virtual reality with the Oculus Rift and bring the VR revolution to your own projects About This Book Create immersive 3D games especially designed for the Oculus Rift platform Build complex realistic virtual reality (VR) games with the Unity Engine Create striking VR environments with advanced graphical techniques Who This Book Is For This book is for aspiring indie developers and VR enthusiasts who want to bring their ideas into virtual reality with a new platform that provides an unprecedented level of realism and immersion. What You Will Learn Increase immersion with 3D audio and intuitive interfaces Create group VR experiences using multi-player networking Design fun and engaging mechanics that utilize VR principles Explore the best ways to navigate and interact using the Oculus Rift Design intuitive ways to navigate and interact with scenes in VR Add stunning realism to a scene with three-dimensional audio Invent mechanics and features that take full advantage of VR hardware In Detail Virtual reality (VR) is changing the world of gaming and entertainment as we know it. VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift immerse players in a virtual world by tracking their head movements and simulating depth, giving them the feeling that they are actually present in the environment. We will first use the Oculus SDK in the book and will then move on to the widely popular Unity Engine, showing you how you can add that extra edge to your VR games using the power of Unity. In this book, you'll learn how to take advantage of this new medium by designing around each of its unique features. This book will demonstrate the Unity 5 game engine, one of most widely-used engines for VR development, and will take you through a comprehensive project that covers everything necessary to create and publish a complete VR experience for the Oculus Rift. You will also be able to identify the common perils and pitfalls of VR development to ensure that your audience has the most comfortable experience possible. By the end of the book, you will be able to create an advanced VR game for the Oculus Rift, and you'll have everything you need to bring your ideas into a new reality. Style and approach This book takes a step-by-step tutorial approach with illustrative examples to help you implement the projects on your own. The book lets you first get to grips with the Oculus SDK and then moves on to the Unity Engine to add realistic graphics and features in your games.







Oracle and PL/SQL Recipes


Book Description

Oracle PL/SQL Recipes is your go to book for PL/SQL programming solutions. It takes a task-oriented approach to PL/SQL programming that lets you quickly look up a specific task and see the pattern for a solution. Then it's as simple as modifying the pattern for your specific application and implementing it. And you’re done and home for dinner. Oracle PL/SQL Recipes is another in Apress’ ongoing series of recipe books aimed at Oracle practitioners. The recipe format is ideal for the busy professional who just needs to get the job done. Covers the most common PL/SQL programming problems Presents solutions in ready-to-use format Stays short and to-the-point




The Prague Orgy


Book Description

In quest of the unpublished manuscript of a martyred Yiddish writer, the American novelist Nathan Zuckerman travels to Soviet-occupied Prague in the mid-1970s. There, in a nation straightjacketed by totalitarian Communism, he discovers a literary predicament, marked by institutionalized oppression, that is rather different from his own. He also discovers, among the oppressed writers with whom he quickly becomes embroiled in a series of bizarre and poignant adventures, an appealingly perverse kind of heroism. The Prague Orgy, consisting of entries from protagonist Nathan Zuckerman's notebooks recording his sojourn among these outcast artists, completes the trilogy and epilogue Zuckerman bound. It provides a startling ending to Roth's intricately designed magnum opus on the unforeseen consequences of art. This Vintage edition is the first paperback publication of the epilogue.