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FROM THE HIT TV SERIES ARROW, THE MAN BEHIND MERLYN TELLS THE DARK ARCHER’S STORY FOR THE FIRST TIME! He’s been known as Malcolm Merlyn, Arthur King, Ra’s al Ghul...but who is the Dark Archer, really? Years ago, the man now known as Malcolm Merlyn was recruited by the secret sect known as The Hidden for a mission in the Hindu Kush mountains. Their task: to protect a mystical temple from the League of Assassins. But the mission didn’t go as planned—loyalties were questioned as ancient secrets were revealed. Now present-day Merlyn has been captured by a figure from his past demanding answers, and Merlyn’s only hope for survival lies in the long-hidden story of his adventures as Arthur King! Learn the full story of one of the most complex antiheroes of ARROW for the first time as John Barrowman, the actor who brings him to life on the hit TV series, and his sister, novelist Carole E. Barrowman (HOLLOW EARTH), reveal the secret past of the Green Arrow’s mysterious nemesis! Collects ARROW: THE DARK ARCHER digital chapters 1-12.

Rachel Carson was a science pioneer. She was a writer and a scientist. She recognized the dangers pesticide use created for nature. Rachel Carson wrote books to warn people about pesticides like DDT. The most well-known is "Silent Spring." Rachel's books inspired others to research the dangers she found. These popular readers include easy-to-read information, fun facts and trivia, humor, activities and a whole lot more. They are great for ages 7-12 (grades 2-6), because although simple, these readers have substance and really engage kids with their stories. They are great for social studies, meeting state and national curriculum standards, individual and group reading programs, centers, library programs, and have many other terrific educational uses. Get the Answer Key for the Quizzes! Click HERE.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one of the most powerful and safest imaging modalities for examining the human body. High-resolution MRI is expected to aid in the understanding and diagnosis of many neurodegenerative pathologies involving submillimetric lesions or morphological alterations, such as Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis. Although high-magnetic-field systems can deliver a sufficient signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) to increase spatial resolution, long scan times and motion sensitivity continue hindering the utilization of high resolution MRI. Despite the development of corrections for bulk and physiological motion, lengthy acquisition times remain a major obstacle to high-resolution acquisition, especially in clinical applications.In the last decade, the newly developed theory of compressed sensing (CS) offered a promising solution for reducing the MRI scan time. After having explained the theory of compressed sensing, this PhD project proposes an empirical and quantitative analysis of the maximum undersampling factor achievable with CS for T 2 *-weighted imaging.Furthermore, the application of CS to MRI commonly relies on simple sampling patterns such as straight lines, spirals or slight variations of these elementary shapes, which do not take full advantage of the degrees of freedom offered by the hardware and cannot be easily adapted to fit an arbitrary sampling distribution. In this PhD thesis, I have introduced a method called SPARKLING, that may overcome these limitations by taking a radically new approach to the design of k-space sampling. The acronym SPARKLING stands for Spreading Projection Algorithm for Rapid K-space sampLING. It is a versatile method inspired from stippling techniques that automatically generates optimized non-Cartesian sampling patterns compatible with MR hardware constraints on maximum gradient amplitude and slew rate. These sampling curves are designed to comply with key criteria for optimal sampling: a controlled distribution of samples and a locally uniform k-space coverage. Before engaging into experiments, we verified that our gradient system was capable of executing the complex gradient waveforms. We implemented a local phase measurement method and we observed a very good adequacy between prescribed and measured k-space trajectories.Finally, combining sampling efficiency with compressed sensing and parallel imaging, the SPARKLING sampling patterns allowed up to 20-fold reductions in MR scan time, compared to fully-sampled Cartesian acquisitions, for T 2 *-weighted imaging without deterioration of image quality, as demonstrated by our experimental results at 7 Tesla on in vivo human brains. In comparison to existing non-Cartesian sampling strategies (spiral and radial), the proposed technique also yielded superior image quality. Finally, the proposed approach was also extended to 3D imaging and applied at 3 Tesla for which preliminary results on ex vivo phantoms at 0.8 mm isotropic resolution suggest the possibility to reach very high acceleration factors up to 60 for T 2 *-weighting and susceptibility-weighted imaging.

Dust Jacket Hardcover version. The book is a biography of Bob and Kathy Russell who are performers, actors, musicians, and producers of music and theater productions.