# SPEC

This open access book is a unique resource for health professionals who are interested in understanding the philosophical foundations of their daily practice. It provides tools for untangling the motivations and rationality behind the way medicine and healthcare is studied, evaluated and practiced. In particular, it illustrates the impact that thin...

This open access short reader looks into the dynamics which have reshaped rural development and human landscapes in European agriculture and the role of immigrant people. Within this framework it analyses contemporary rural migrations and the emergence of immigrants in relation to the incorporation of agrarian systems into global markets, the Europ...

This open book is an excellent synthesis of the initial and continuing preparation for Mathematics Teaching in Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and Venezuela, from which comparative analyses can be made that show similarities and differences, and highlight various perspectives. In August 2012, a workshop of the Capacity and Networking Proj...

In this lively and approachable volume based on his popular blog series, Martin Weller demonstrates a rich history of innovation and effective implementation of ed tech across higher education. From Bulletin Board Systems to blockchain, Weller follows the trajectory of education by focusing each chapter on a technology, theory, or concept that has ...

In Protecting SQL Server Data, John Magnabosco demonstrates how sensitive data, stored in SQL Server, can be protected using an efficient and maintainable encryption-based data architecture. He explains how to assess and categorize data elements according to sensitivity, regulate access to the various categories of data using database roles, vie...

Get a head start evaluating Windows 10-with technical insights from award-winning journalist and Windows expert Ed Bott. This guide introduces new features and capabilities, providing a practical, high-level overview for IT professionals ready to begin deployment planning now. The goal of this book is to help you sort out what's new in Wind...

This book provides a handbook of algorithmic recipes from the fields of Metaheuristics, Biologically Inspired Computation and Computational Intelligence that have been described in a complete, consistent, and centralized manner. These standardized descriptions were carefully designed to be accessible, usable, and understandable. Most of the algorit...

This book is devoted to emotional and narrative immersion in the experience of gameplay. The focus of our research is the complex interplay between the story and mechanics in digital games. Our goal is to demonstrate how the narrative and the ludic elements together can form unique player experiences. The volume is a collection of case studies invo...

This book is a a discussion of the calculation of specific formulas in finance. The field of finance has seen a rapid development in recent years, with increasing mathematical sophistication. While the formalization of the field can be traced back to the work of Markowitz (1952) on investors mean-variance decisions and Modigliani and Miller (1958) ...

This book helps you gain the foundational knowledge required to write an operating system from scratch. Hence the title, 0 to 1. After completing this book, at the very least you will learn: - How to write an operating system from scratch by reading hardware datasheets. In the real world, it works like that. You won't be able to consult Go...

Development of embedded software has for some years mainly been carried out by hardware-aware programming using the C-language, and in some cases even in assembly languages. This works well in simple cases when the application demands and the hardware are known at design time, and the size of the (statically defined) software is small. When applica...

How do you write truly elegant code with Ruby? Ruby Best Practices is for programmers who want to use Ruby as experienced Rubyists do. Written by the developer of the Ruby project Prawn, this concise book explains how to design beautiful APIs and domain-specific languages with Ruby, as well as how to work with functional programming ideas and techn...

If you want to build your site's frontend with the single-page application (SPA) model, this hands-on book shows you how to get the job done with Backbone.js. You'll learn how to create structured JavaScript applications, using Backbone's own flavor of model-view-controller (MVC) architecture. Start with the basics of MVC, SPA, an...

The complexity of software development requires coordination and collaboration between all teams involved to guarantee that the client - whether a customer or another team in-house - is satisfied. DevOps is one strategy for achieving successful development, testing, and deployment, and Microsoft Azure provides a collection of tools and services tha...

JavaScript is a programming language that conforms to the ECMAScript specification. It is an unofficial and free JavaScript ebook created for educational purposes. All the content is extracted from Stack Overflow Documentation, which is written by many hardworking individuals at Stack Overflow....

C++ is a general-purpose programming language as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". It is an unofficial and free C++ ebook created for educational purposes. All the content is extracted from Stack Overflow Documentation, which is written by many hardworking individuals at Stack Overflow....

Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system developed by Microsoft. It is an unofficial and free Microsoft SQL Server ebook created for educational purposes. All the content is extracted from Stack Overflow Documentation, which is written by many hardworking individuals at Stack Overflow....

A regular expression (regex or regexp) is a sequence of characters that define a search pattern. It is an unofficial and free Regular Expressions book created for educational purposes. All the content is extracted from Stack Overflow Documentation, which is written by many hardworking individuals at Stack Overflow....

SAS (Statistical Analysis System) is a statistical software suite for data management, advanced analytics, multivariate analysis, business intelligence, criminal investigation, and predictive analytics. It is an unofficial and free SAS book created for educational purposes. All the content is extracted from Stack Overflow Documentation, which is...

Bosun is an open-source monitoring and alerting system created by Stack Overflow. It has an expressive domain specific language for evaluating alerts and creating detailed notifications. It also lets you test your alerts against historical data for a faster development experience. It is an unofficial and free Bosun book created for educational p...

This book highlights that the capacity for gathering, analysing, and utilising vast amounts of digital (user) data raises significant ethical issues. Annika Richterich provides a systematic contemporary overview of the field of critical data studies that reflects on practices of digital data collection and analysis. The book assesses in detail one ...

While many resources for network and IT security are available, detailed knowledge regarding modern web application security has been lacking - until now. This practical guide provides both offensive and defensive security concepts that software engineers can easily learn and apply. Andrew Hoffman, a senior security engineer at Salesforce, intro...

This text is an introduction to the future of mass media and mass communications - cross-media communications. Cross-media is explained through the presentation and analysis of contemporary examples and project-based tutorials in cross-media development. The text introduces fundamental terms and concepts, and provides a solid overview of cross-medi...

Maria Stuart, described as Schiller's most perfect play, is a finely balanced, inventive account of the last day of the captive Queen of Scotland, caught up in a great contest for the throne of England after the death of Henry VIII and over the question of England's religious confession. Hope for and doubt about Mary's deliverance gr...

Effective Research Data Management (RDM) is a key component of research integrity and reproducible research, and its importance is increasingly emphasised by funding bodies, governments, and research institutions around the world. However, many researchers are unfamiliar with RDM best practices, and research support staff are faced with the difficu...

Why do we play games and why do we play them on computers? The contributors of Games and Rules take a closer look at the core of each game and the motivational system that is the game mechanics. Games are control circuits that organize the game world with their (joint) players and establish motivations in a dedicated space, a "Magic Circle,&qu...

Everything Flows explores the metaphysical thesis that the living world is not made up of substantial particles or things, as has often been supposed, but is rather constituted by processes. The biological domain is organised as an interdependent hierarchy of processes, which are stabilized and actively maintained at different timescales. Even enti...

Have you ever looked deep into the eyes of an animal and felt entirely known? Often, the connections we share with non-human animals represent our safest and most reliable relationships, offering unique and profound opportunities for healing in periods of hardship. This book focuses on research developments, models, and practical applications of hu...

This book is designed to introduce you to using Ansible to manage your servers. You'll learn how to install and configure Ansible on a control node, and then how to use it to configure and run commands on remote servers. You'll also learn how to collect tasks into complete Playbooks to automate server setup from start to finish. The to...

This is a teaching material about object-oriented programming, illustrated with use of the programming language C#. It is assumed, as a prerequisite, that the readers have some knowledge about imperative programming, preferably knowledge about C. I believe that it is best to learn object-oriented programming after having learned and worked w...

In 1760, the French playwright Charles Palissot de Montenoy wrote Les Philosophes - a scandalous farcical comedy about a group of opportunistic self-styled philosophers. Les Philosophes emerged in the charged historical context of the pamphlet wars surrounding the publication of Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie, and delivered an obl...

In 2007, 144 UN member states voted to adopt a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US were the only members to vote against it. Each eventually changed its position. This book explains why and examines what the Declaration could mean for sovereignty, citizenship and democracy in liberal societies ...