'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s.

Usability Testing Essentials provides readers with the tools and techniques needed to begin usability testing or to advance their knowledge in this area. The book begins by presenting the essentials of usability testing, which include focusing on the user and not the product; knowing when to conduct small or large studies; and thinking of usability as hill climbing. It then reviews testing options and places usability testing into the context of a user-centered design (UCD).

It goes on to dis...

Since its initial publication eighty years ago, How to Win Friends & Influence People has sold over fifteen million copies worldwide. In his book, Carnegie explains that success comes from the ability to communicate effectively with others. He provides relatable analogies and examples, and teaches you skills to make people want to be in your company, see things your way, and feel wonderful about it. For more than eighty years his advice has helped thousands of successful people in their busin...

The Catcher in Rye is the ultimate novel for disaffected youth, but it's relevant to all ages. The story is told by Holden Caulfield, a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Throughout, Holden dissects the 'phony' aspects of society, and the 'phonies' themselves: the headmaster whose affability depends on the wealth of the parents, his roommate who scores with girls using sickly-sweet affection.Lazy in style, full of slang and swear words, it's a novel...

What's more important to a story: a gripping plot or compelling characters? Literary-minded novelists argue in favor of character-based novels while commercial novelists argue in favor of plot-based stories, but the truth of the matter is this: The best fiction is rich in both.

Enter Plot Versus Character. This hands-on guide to creating a well-rounded novel embraces both of these crucial story components. You'll learn to:

Create layered characters by considering personality traits, natural a...

Risks and uncertainties play a role in virtually all of our decisions. Quantitative models have so far been either too unrealistic or too complex. This graduate textbook presents modern models that are both realistic and tractable. All mathematical tools are related to real-life processes, ensuring accessibility to a wide audience.

This book aims to explain the basics of graph theory that are needed at an introductory level for students in computer or information sciences. To motivate students and to show that even these basic notions can be extremely useful, the book also aims to provide an introduction to the modern field of network science.Mathematics is often unnecessarily difficult for students, at times even intimidating. For this reason, explicit attention is paid in the first chapters to mathematical notations a...

Just about everyone seems to have views about language. Language attitudes and language ideologies permeate our daily lives. Our competence, intelligence, friendliness, trustworthiness, social status, group memberships, and so on, are often judged from the way we communicate.

Even the speed at which we speak can evoke reactions. And we often try to anticipate such judgements as we communicate. In this lively introduction, Peter Garrett draws upon research carried out over recent decades in or...

Ibn Sina - Avicenna in Latin - (980-1037) played a considerable role in the development of both eastern and western philosophy and science. His contributions to the fields of logic, natural science, psychology, metaphysics and theology and even medicine are difficult to overstate. The great Islamic philosopher al-Ghazali thought that if one could show the incoherence of Avicenna's thought, then one would have shown the incoherence of philosophy in general.

No other author is directly cited by...

Studies in religion are flourishing internationally, and one of the central topics discussed in the field today-perhaps the most discussed topic-is religious diversity. With the influx of religious traditions in the West and the growing diversity of religious adherents and practitioners worldwide, people across the globe are currently nterested in exploring issues in religious diversity. The present work is a response to this ubiquitous interest.

It is a substantial volume of thirty-three ori...