Search results for ""Author SANKAR""

A small set of fossilized bones discovered almost thirty years ago led paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee on a lifelong quest to understand their place in our understanding of the history of life. They were clearly the bones of something unusual, a bird-like creature that lived long, long ago in the age of dinosaurs. He called it Protoavis, and the animal that owned these bones quickly became a contender for the title of "oldest known bird." In 1997, Chatterjee published his findings in the first edition of The Rise of Birds. Since then Chatterjee and his colleagues have searched the world for more transitional bird fossils. And they have found them. This second edition of The Rise of Birds brings together a treasure trove of fossils that tell us far more about the evolution of birds than we once dreamed possible. With no blind allegiance to what he once thought he knew, Chatterjee devours the new evidence and lays out the most compelling version of the birth and evolution of the avian form ever attempted. He takes us from Texas to Spain, China, Mongolia, Madagascar, Australia, Antarctica, and Argentina. He shows how, in the "Cretaceous Pompeii" of China, he was able to reconstruct the origin and evolution of flight of early birds from the feathered dinosaurs that lay among thousands of other amazing fossils. Chatterjee takes us to where long-hidden bird fossils dwell. His compelling, occasionally controversial, revelations - accompanied by spectacular illustrations - are a must-read for anyone with a serious interest in the evolution of "the feathered dinosaurs," from vertebrate paleontologists and ornithologists to naturalists and birders.

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In the late eighteenth century, an array of European political thinkers attacked the very foundations of imperialism, arguing passionately that empire-building was not only unworkable, costly, and dangerous, but manifestly unjust. Enlightenment against Empire is the first book devoted to the anti-imperialist political philosophies of an age often regarded as affirming imperial ambitions. Sankar Muthu argues that thinkers such as Denis Diderot, Immanuel Kant, and Johann Gottfried Herder developed an understanding of humans as inherently cultural agents and therefore necessarily diverse. These thinkers rejected the conception of a culture-free "natural man." They held that moral judgments of superiority or inferiority could be made neither about entire peoples nor about many distinctive cultural institutions and practices. Muthu shows how such arguments enabled the era's anti-imperialists to defend the freedom of non-European peoples to order their own societies. In contrast to those who praise "the Enlightenment" as the triumph of a universal morality and critics who view it as an imperializing ideology that denigrated cultural pluralism, Muthu argues instead that eighteenth-century political thought included multiple Enlightenments. He reveals a distinctive and underappreciated strand of Enlightenment thinking that interweaves commitments to universal moral principles and incommensurable ways of life, and that links the concept of a shared human nature with the idea that humans are fundamentally diverse. Such an intellectual temperament, Muthu contends, can broaden our own perspectives about international justice and the relationship between human unity and diversity.

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This book uses tutorials and new material to describe the basic concepts of soft-computing which potentially can be used in real-life sensor network applications. It is organized in a manner that exemplifies the use of an assortment of soft-computing applications for solving different problems in sensor networking. Written by worldwide experts, the chapters provide a balanced mixture of different problems concerning channel access, routing, coverage, localization, lifetime maximization and target tracking using emerging soft-computing applications.

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This text gives students of explorational geophysics a comprehensive view into the interpretation of Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) curves. Civil engineers with an interest in environmental problems and agricultural scientists and engineers interested in irrigation, may find this book useful.

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What did Swami Vivekananda recommend about the eating of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food?Which of these did Swamiji enjoy the most: his mother's chorchori (a mixed vegetable delicacy), his father's pulao or his own khichuri?Was he fond of spicy food, sweets, or ice cream?During his days of hunger and want, for how many days at a stretch did Swamiji have to go without food? Over the last 150 years, writings on Swami Vivekananda's culinary interests have intrigued a wide spectrum of people across the world. This includes hitherto unknown stories of his spreading the art of making pulao and khichuri along with his propagation of the Vedas, in the United States of America.While many thinkers wonder at Swamiji's immense enthusiasm for teaching Indian cooking, yet it is not quite clear why no complete book about our culinary-enthusiast monk Vivekananda has ever been published in any language.Swami Vivekananda: The Feasting, Fasting Monk is the humble, illumination of a thousand faceted diamond by Sankar.

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Learn how to apply rough-fuzzy computing techniques to solve problems in bioinformatics and medical image processing Emphasizing applications in bioinformatics and medical image processing, this text offers a clear framework that enables readers to take advantage of the latest rough-fuzzy computing techniques to build working pattern recognition models. The authors explain step by step how to integrate rough sets with fuzzy sets in order to best manage the uncertainties in mining large data sets. Chapters are logically organized according to the major phases of pattern recognition systems development, making it easier to master such tasks as classification, clustering, and feature selection. Rough-Fuzzy Pattern Recognition examines the important underlying theory as well as algorithms and applications, helping readers see the connections between theory and practice. The first chapter provides an introduction to pattern recognition and data mining, including the key challenges of working with high-dimensional, real-life data sets. Next, the authors explore such topics and issues as: Soft computing in pattern recognition and data mining A mathematical framework for generalized rough sets, incorporating the concept of fuzziness in defining the granules as well as the set Selection of non-redundant and relevant features of real-valued data sets Selection of the minimum set of basis strings with maximum information for amino acid sequence analysis Segmentation of brain MR images for visualization of human tissues Numerous examples and case studies help readers better understand how pattern recognition models are developed and used in practice. This text—covering the latest findings as well as directions for future research—is recommended for both students and practitioners working in systems design, pattern recognition, image analysis, data mining, bioinformatics, soft computing, and computational intelligence.

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Fuzzy sets, near sets, and rough sets are useful and important stepping stones in a variety of approaches to image analysis. These three types of sets and their various hybridizations provide powerful frameworks for image analysis. Emphasizing the utility of fuzzy, near, and rough sets in image analysis, Rough Fuzzy Image Analysis: Foundations and Methodologies introduces the fundamentals and applications in the state of the art of rough fuzzy image analysis. In the first chapter, the distinguished editors explain how fuzzy, near, and rough sets provide the basis for the stages of pictorial pattern recognition: image transformation, feature extraction, and classification. The text then discusses hybrid approaches that combine fuzzy sets and rough sets in image analysis, illustrates how to perform image analysis using only rough sets, and describes tolerance spaces and a perceptual systems approach to image analysis. It also presents a free, downloadable implementation of near sets using the Near Set Evaluation and Recognition (NEAR) system, which visualizes concepts from near set theory. In addition, the book covers an array of applications, particularly in medical imaging involving breast cancer diagnosis, laryngeal pathology diagnosis, and brain MR segmentation.Edited by two leading researchers and with contributions from some of the best in the field, this volume fully reflects the diversity and richness of rough fuzzy image analysis. It deftly examines the underlying set theories as well as the diverse methods and applications.

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Information on integrating soft computing techniques into video surveillance is widely scattered among conference papers, journal articles, and books. Bringing this research together in one source, Handbook on Soft Computing for Video Surveillance illustrates the application of soft computing techniques to different tasks in video surveillance. Worldwide experts in the field present novel solutions to video surveillance problems and discuss future trends.After an introduction to video surveillance systems and soft computing tools, the book gives examples of neural network-based approaches for solving video surveillance tasks and describes summarization techniques for content identification. Covering a broad spectrum of video surveillance topics, the remaining chapters explain how soft computing techniques are used to detect moving objects, track objects, and classify and recognize target objects. The book also explores advanced surveillance systems under development.Incorporating both existing and new ideas, this handbook unifies the basic concepts, theories, algorithms, and applications of soft computing. It demonstrates why and how soft computing methodologies can be used in various video surveillance problems.

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This valuable volume addresses the growing consumer demand for novel functional food products and for high-value, nutritionally rich products by focusing on the sources and applications of bioactives from food. The chapters in the book describe functional properties and discuss applications of the selected food ingredients obtained from various sources, including culinary banana, phalsa, pseudocereals, roselle calyces, asparagus, and more.Several chapters address the resurgence of interest in pseudocereals due to their excellent nutritional and biological values, gluten-free composition, and the presence of some health-promoting compounds. The book also looks at utilizing industrial byproducts for making functional and nutraceutical ingredients. The chapters on prebiotics and probiotics highlight different functional properties, and a chapter on food allergens discusses advancements in detection and management in the food manufacturing industries.

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