No one expects the deal to last, and both sides are preparing for the next showdown. But from the depths of space another challenge is coming, one that will endanger the very survival of mankind and force not just the Alliance and its colonies, but all of the Superpowers, to join forces or face annihilation. The dusty ruins the Alliance discovered on Epsilon Eridani IV were built by an ancient race, eons dead. But their guardians remain, and the disturbance of long silent caves triggered an automated alert, one which has been heard. Erik Cain and his Marines grimly take to the field once again, for what may be their final battle, against the robotic legions of the First Imperium. But facing a ruthless and technologically superior enemy may be easier than learning to fight alongside old enemies. The Line Must Hold (Crimson Worlds V) The robotic legions of the First Imperium burst into human space, destroying everything in their path. Their antimatter-powered fleets drove back the desperately defending human forces, seizing world after world. Directed by the maniacal Regent, the enemy pressed forward with one goal - the destruction of mankind. The Superpowers of Earth, bitter enemies for over a century, have at last banded together to face the threat from outside. Their combined forces have fought stubborn delaying actions to buy time, but they couldn't stop the relentless onslaught. Now the Rim has fallen, and the heart of human space lies before the invaders. On three worlds, mankind will make its stand, and all the power Earth and its colonies can muster has been gathered there. Three worlds - Sandoval, Garrison, and Samvar. The Line. Erik Cain grimly leads his veteran Marines and their new allies to Sandoval, to fight and to hold that world against anything the enemy throws at it. But Cain plans more than just a defense; he intends to annihilate the enemy forces...and he'll sacrifice anything to win the ultimate victory. Even his soul. To Hell's Heart (Crimson Worlds VI) The combined forces of humanity have beaten back the First Imperium invasion. For the first time, the enemy has been defeated in battle. The cost was high in blood and suffering, but the Line held. The heart of human-occupied space has been saved from annihilation. For now. There is little time for the victorious warriors to savor their triumph or mourn their dead. The First Imperium has been driven back, but it has not been defeated. No one expects the fruits of victory to be more than a brief respite. Augustus Garret, Erik Cain, and the rest of the human high command have a decision to make. Do they stand on the defensive, waiting for the massive second invasion they all know will come? Or do they consider another option, one that compels them to face overwhelming odds, and launch a strike that could end the war in one campaign? The attack ship Hornet returned home after a miraculous run through enemy space, and her crew brought with them priceless intelligence…the location of a world of the First Imperium. In the capitals of Earth, the ruling classes call for caution, for the armed forces to stand on the defensive. But on the frontier, Garret and his compatriots are planning something different, and they do not intend to be deterred. They are going to take the war to the enemy. They are going to march into hell’s heart.

    This practical guide that covers all of the need to know topics in a very systematic way. For each machine learning approach, each step in the process is detailed, from preparing the data for analysis to evaluating the results. These steps will build the knowledge you need to apply them to your own data science tasks.Intended for those who want to learn how to use R's machine learning capabilities and gain insight from your data. Perhaps you already know a bit about machine learning, but have never used R; or perhaps you know a little R but are new to machine learning. In either case, this book will get you up and running quickly. It would be helpful to have a bit of familiarity with basic programming concepts, but no prior experience is required.

    The aim of this textbook is to introduce machine learning, and the algorithmic paradigms it offers, in a principled way. The book provides an extensive theoretical account of the fundamental ideas underlying machine learning and the mathematical derivations that transform these principles into practical algorithms. Following a presentation of the basics of the field, the book covers a wide array of central topics that have not been addressed by previous textbooks. These include a discussion of the computational complexity of learning and the concepts of convexity and stability; important algorithmic paradigms including stochastic gradient descent, neural networks, and structured output learning; and emerging theoretical concepts such as the PAC-Bayes approach and compression-based bounds. Designed for an advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate course, the text makes the fundamentals and algorithms of machine learning accessible to students and non-expert readers in statistics, computer science, mathematics, and engineering.

    Doing it without getting your feet wet is even harder. Dexter Knight and his two mismatched partners have managed to do it, but are finding it difficult to turn their acquisitions into cold hard cash. When one such sale goes horribly awry, they wind up hijacked, along with their technology. Unsure if he’s now working for a government agency or a criminal conspiracy, Dexter finds his team dragged out to the oceans deepest spot, the Marianas Trench. There, beneath seven miles of sea water, lies an unknown object far more intriguing than fine china. While Dexter would prefer to get back to civilization and dry land, he finds himself pondering a more ominous question. If he leaves without solving the mystery beneath the waves, will there be any civilization to go back to?

    Liyan is a young man with wanderlust in his eyes, embarking on a career that takes him to the furthest regions of space. The two become unlikely friends and create a memorable long-distance correspondence. Through Liyan, Cobalt gets to explore the universe, living vicariously through his friend's wave transmissions. A strong bond develops between them that not even the stars can put asunder.

    Will humanity survive? Many scientists predict that as early as 2024 an unprecedented event will happen that will completely change our lives. They aren’t talking about global warming or nuclear war, but technological singularity. They predict that a computer with artificial general intelligence (AGI) will be able to program its own software and redesign itself. This superintelligence will exceed all human understanding and will be beyond our control. In non-technical language, The Singularity is Coming clarifies what may happen and speculates about how it may affect us. It is a compilation of information that includes comments from experts, news announcements of the latest developments, and a comprehensive reading list.In the Facts to Prophetic Fiction section is a collection of speculative science fiction pieces and short stories including: GODLIKE: The ideal companion for lonely emigrant. EQUALITY: The laws say robots must protect humans, always...? BE HAPPY WHEN WE TAKE OVER: Know your limitations. Are we on the threshold of a new golden age? Some scientists are optimistic about the singularity and predict the new intelligence will create amazing advances. It may bring about longer, healthier lives, an end to crime, and a solution to world hunger. Others wonder where our place would be in the new order. Will this superintelligence include benevolence? Are we on the verge of a new beginning for humanity, or the end of life as we know it? Read The Singularity is Coming now and decide for yourself.

    Awaken in secret laboratories or walk among gods. Multi-genres are represented making this set a must-read for every book-lover! Appropriate for ages 13+: Devour by Shelly Crane Inescapable by Amy A. Bartol The Forgotten Ones by Laura Howard Elsker by ST Bende History of Fire by Alexia Purdy Everblue by Brenda Pandos Guardians: The Girl by Lola St. Vil The Gatekeeper's Sons by Eva Pohler From Gods by Mary Ting Appropriate for ages 16+ due to language, sexual situations, and violence: First by Alyssa Rose Ivy Darkness in Light by Stacey Marie Brown Lark by Erica Cope Catalyst by Jennifer Snyder Promise by Kristie Cook Redemption by RK Ryals Return of the Ascendant by Raine Thomas A Matter of Fate by Heather Lyons Runes by Ednah Walters Freak of Nature by Julia Crane River's Recruit by Charlotte Abel

    Includes the Valkyrie Chronicles books, Return of the Asgard, Bloodlines, and Folkvangr. Valkyrie Chronicles: Return of the Asgard The Valkyrie Kara stood alone against the Ragnarok horde on Earth to ensure that the Asgard race and Valhalla could escape. For five thousand years she has fought and evaded the Ragnarok race on Earth, just waiting for her people to return. A human woman, Kate, joins her fight against the invading race, showing as much conviction and valor as any Valkyrie. Their friendship quickly becomes something more as they hold the line on Earth in battle to herald the return of the Asgard. Valkyrie Chronicles: Bloodlines When a weakness of Valkyrie sight is uncovered, Kara, Kate and an unlikely ally, must race against time to stop a saboteur before Valhalla falls. Arina copes with being a new type of Valkyrie and defies Odin while reminding the ruling caste what the ideals of the Asgard are and what they should all aspire to be. She must help a young Ragnarok, who was sent to die at the gates of Valhalla, to learn the truth about the Asgard and her own people. Old enemies and lost friends weave a web that could spell the end for one of Odin's own. Valkyrie Chronicles: Folkvangr he Asgard have created a new permanent colony on Earth. As Kara and the rest of the Asgard prepare to transition away from Earth... Freya, using trickery, subterfuge, and cobbled together technology, fights for the very survival of the last of the Vanger race on Folkvangr.

    

    Cassie and Tonk is the story of two unlikely friends in unlikely time who go to unlikely places. Cassie and Tonk is about an important lesson in the story of growing up.

    1 is a novella-length collection of six short stories set in a common universe. Combining elements of space opera-style science fiction and high fantasy, THE BENEVOLENCE ARCHIVES describes the adventures of Brazel, Rhundi, and Grond, a gnome/halfogre team of smugglers.THE PLANET IT'S FARTHEST FROM: A simple job in a saloon goes poorly for Brazel.THE CLOSET: Brazel and Grond are hired to teach someone why gambling can be a bad idea.YANK: Dwarven pirates. 'Nuff said.REMEMBER: Brazel and Grond are hired by one of the galaxy's most powerful people for a suspiciously easy job.THE CONTRACT: Rhundi tries to get through a simple business negotiation without anyone being shot.THE SIGIL: Brazel and Grond encounter something horrifying on a frozen rock in the middle of nowhere.

    However, most discussions of Bayesian inference rely on intensely complex mathematical analyses and artificial examples, making it inaccessible to anyone without a strong mathematical background. Now, though, Cameron Davidson-Pilon introduces Bayesian inference from a computational perspective, bridging theory to practice-freeing you to get results using computing power. Bayesian Methods for Hackers illuminates Bayesian inference through probabilistic programming with the powerful PyMC language and the closely related Python tools NumPy, SciPy, and Matplotlib. Using this approach, you can reach effective solutions in small increments, without extensive mathematical intervention. Davidson-Pilon begins by introducing the concepts underlying Bayesian inference, comparing it with other techniques and guiding you through building and training your first Bayesian model. Next, he introduces PyMC through a series of detailed examples and intuitive explanations that have been refined after extensive user feedback. You'll learn how to use the Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm, choose appropriate sample sizes and priors, work with loss functions, and apply Bayesian inference in domains ranging from finance to marketing. Once you've mastered these techniques, you'll constantly turn to this guide for the working PyMC code you need to jumpstart future projects. Coverage includes - Learning the Bayesian "state of mind" and its practical implications - Understanding how computers perform Bayesian inference - Using the PyMC Python library to program Bayesian analyses - Building and debugging models with PyMC - Testing your model's "goodness of fit" - Opening the "black box" of the Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm to see how and why it works - Leveraging the power of the "Law of Large Numbers" - Mastering key concepts, such as clustering, convergence, autocorrelation, and thinning - Using loss functions to measure an estimate's weaknesses based on your goals and desired outcomes - Selecting appropriate priors and understanding how their influence changes with dataset size - Overcoming the "exploration versus exploitation" dilemma: deciding when "pretty good" is good enough - Using Bayesian inference to improve A/B testing - Solving data science problems when only small amounts of data are available Cameron Davidson-Pilon has worked in many areas of applied mathematics, from the evolutionary dynamics of genes and diseases to stochastic modeling of financial prices. His contributions to the open source community include lifelines, an implementation of survival analysis in Python. Educated at the University of Waterloo and at the Independent University of Moscow, he currently works with the online commerce leader Shopify.

    You will look twice at people...and technology. In a future that is the by-product of a digital era nightmare, the idea of making life simple appealed to the mainstream. After the economic collapse of the twenty-first century, the government latched on to technology like an economic life-line. Bio-synthetic humanoids integrated into society with relative ease. Taking on the menial jobs, humans grew dependent on their android counterparts, but the corporate sector took things too far. Wrapped in their one-click comfort zones, people trudged along with their latte's and fashion trend blinders. The dark side of genetic engineering is a harsh reality. Humans are being hunted. They don't stand a chance. No one seemed to notice that they weren't acting as hospitable as they once had. They should have. They didn't have weaknesses like we did, and, they were capable of clever, unimaginable cruelty. Those that have survived call the rogue bio-synthetic humanoids "simps" because the company that started the mess had a cheesy marketing campaign that said they made life "Simple." They couldn't have been more wrong. When the war broke out, simps were used to spare human losses. It was viewed as a brilliant solution until a developer working for the enemy infected the simps with a virus that caused them to turn on the humans they served. They couldn't shut them down fast enough. Fans of Isaac Asimov will appreciate this fast past thriller, although the three laws of robotics never applied to simps! This cyberpunk tale is set in the year 2038. Hailey Pachello doesn't do people. She relies on herself because it's easier. It's safer, and it's less dramatic. That is until she meets Leonard 'Gizzard' O'Malley. Giz has connections and a plan, and it might just be a good one. Join Hailey as she embarks on her wondrous adventure, in a timeless, powerful, and memorable cyberpunk thriller.

    Originally published in 1979, this now classic text was the first comprehensive attempt to define the scope of logic for problem solving. In this extended edition, Robert Kowalski revisits his classic text in the light of subsequent developments in a substantial commentary of fifty pages.This work investigates the application of logic to problem-solving and computer programming. It assumes no previous knowledge of these fields, and may be appropriate therefore as an introduction to logic, the theory of problem-solving, and computer programming. At the focal point is Computational Logic. It centers around the famous slogan: Algorithm = Logic + Control, which was coined by the author and is explained in this book. According to this view, an algorithm consists of a problem description (the logic part) and a strategy to perform useful computations on this description (the control part). This separation of concerns ideally leads to declarative programs that are simple to develop, clear to understand and easy to maintain.

    The book discusses the importance of developing critical-thinking methods and skills, and develops a consistent approach toward each problem: 1) a precise description of a well-known AI problem coupled with an effective graphical representation; 2) discussion of possible approaches to solving each problem; 3) identifying and presenting the best known human solution to each problem; 4) evaluation and discussion of the Human Window aspects for the best solution; 5) a playability site where students can exercise the process of developing their solutions, as well as experiencing the best solution; 6) code or pseudo-code implementing the solution algorithm, and 7) academic references for each problem. Features: Addresses AI problems well known to computer science and mathematics students from a number of perspectivesCovers classic AI problems such as Twelve Coins, Red Donkey, Cryptarithms, Rubik s Cube, Missionaries/Cannibals, Knight s Tour, Monty Hall, and more Includes playability sites where students can exercise the process of developing their solutionsProblem solving methods which may be applied to many problem situations Brief Table of Contents: 1: Problem Solving in AI 2. The Human Window 3. Missionaries and Cannibals 4. Twelve Coins Problems 5. Cryptarithms 6. The Red Donkey Puzzle 7. The Fifteen Puzzle 8. Knight s Tour 9. Mastermind 10. The Monty Hall Problem 11. Rubik s Cube 12. Prisoners Dilemma 13. Miscellaneous Problems 14. Summary/Conclusion 15. Appendix- Program Code."

    This book offers the definitive guide to the theory and practice of disaster robotics. It can serve as an introduction for researchers and technologists, a reference for emergency managers, and a textbook in field robotics. Written by a pioneering researcher in the field who has herself participated in fifteen deployments of robots in disaster response and recovery, the book covers theory and practice, the history of the field, and specific missions.After a broad overview of rescue robotics in the context of emergency informatics, the book provides a chronological summary and formal analysis of the thirty-four documented deployments of robots to disasters that include the 2001 collapse of the World Trade Center, Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and numerous mining accidents. It then examines disaster robotics in the typical robot modalities of ground, air, and marine, addressing such topics as robot types, missions and tasks, and selection heuristics for each modality. Finally, the book discusses types of fieldwork, providing practical advice on matters that include collecting data and collaborating with emergency professionals.The field of disaster robotics has lacked a comprehensive overview. This book by a leader in the field, offering a unique combination of the theoretical and the practical, fills the gap.

    Cognition, both natural and artificial, is about anticipating the need for action and developing the capacity to predict the outcome of those actions. Drawing on artificial intelligence, developmental psychology, and cognitive neuroscience, the field of artificial cognitive systems has as its ultimate goal the creation of computer-based systems that can interact with humans and serve society in a variety of ways. This primer brings together recent work in cognitive science and cognitive robotics to offer readers a solid grounding on key issues.The book first develops a working definition of cognitive systems--broad enough to encompass multiple views of the subject and deep enough to help in the formulation of theories and models. It surveys the cognitivist, emergent, and hybrid paradigms of cognitive science and discusses cognitive architectures derived from them. It then turns to the key issues, with chapters devoted to autonomy, embodiment, learning and development, memory and prospection, knowledge and representation, and social cognition. Ideas are introduced in an intuitive, natural order, with an emphasis on the relationships among ideas and building to an overview of the field. The main text is straightforward and succinct; sidenotes drill deeper on specific topics and provide contextual links to further reading.

    This is the first automatic speech recognition book dedicated to the deep learning approach. In addition to the rigorous mathematical treatment of the subject, the book also presents insights and theoretical foundation of a series of highly successful deep learning models.

    A technological wonder that can peer into the mind of any human player and draw out their inner most desire. Any 'Individual' human player. How well CelestAI will handle satisfying the values of a single pony guided by over one hundred thousand Twitch.TV viewers is anyone's guess.

    You’d never hear Cutter say he hates androids. Not out loud anyway. Damn synthetics hear everything. Cutter drags Celia from grisly murder scene to cracked-out cyber-den, hot on the trail of the assassin. As they sink deeper into the case, a far more sinister scheme emerges which threatens the lives of all Angelenos and the only way to stop it lies in the head of a childish android. DAMAGED GOOD is a fast paced science fiction thriller set in the dystopic near future of Los Angeles. It has been likened to Blade Runner, Altered Carbon, and Ghost in the Shell.