Machine Learning
Ethem Alpaydin - 2016
It is the basis for a new approach to artificial intelligence that aims to program computers to use example data or past experience to solve a given problem. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Ethem Alpayd�n offers a concise and accessible overview of the new AI. This expanded edition offers new material on such challenges facing machine learning as privacy, security, accountability, and bias. Alpayd�n, author of a popular textbook on machine learning, explains that as Big Data has gotten bigger, the theory of machine learning--the foundation of efforts to process that data into knowledge--has also advanced. He describes the evolution of the field, explains important learning algorithms, and presents example applications. He discusses the use of machine learning algorithms for pattern recognition; artificial neural networks inspired by the human brain; algorithms that learn associations between instances; and reinforcement learning, when an autonomous agent learns to take actions to maximize reward. In a new chapter, he considers transparency, explainability, and fairness, and the ethical and legal implications of making decisions based on data.
Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe
George Dyson - 2012
In Turing’s Cathedral, George Dyson focuses on a small group of men and women, led by John von Neumann at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, who built one of the first computers to realize Alan Turing’s vision of a Universal Machine. Their work would break the distinction between numbers that mean things and numbers that do things—and our universe would never be the same. Using five kilobytes of memory (the amount allocated to displaying the cursor on a computer desktop of today), they achieved unprecedented success in both weather prediction and nuclear weapons design, while tackling, in their spare time, problems ranging from the evolution of viruses to the evolution of stars. Dyson’s account, both historic and prophetic, sheds important new light on how the digital universe exploded in the aftermath of World War II. The proliferation of both codes and machines was paralleled by two historic developments: the decoding of self-replicating sequences in biology and the invention of the hydrogen bomb. It’s no coincidence that the most destructive and the most constructive of human inventions appeared at exactly the same time. How did code take over the world? In retracing how Alan Turing’s one-dimensional model became John von Neumann’s two-dimensional implementation, Turing’s Cathedral offers a series of provocative suggestions as to where the digital universe, now fully three-dimensional, may be heading next.
Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science
Ronald L. Graham - 1988
"More concretely," the authors explain, "it is the controlled manipulation of mathematical formulas, using a collection of techniques for solving problems."
Murach's HTML5 and CSS3: Training and Reference
Zak Ruvalcaba - 2011
This title also teaches you how to use the HTML5 and CSS3 features alongside the earlier standards.
Python: The Complete Reference
Martin C. Brown - 2001
This text is split into distinct sections, each concentrating on a core angle of the language. The book also contains sections for Web and application development, the two most popular uses for Python. It is designed to teach a programmer how to use Python by explaining the mechanics of Python. The appendixes offer a quick guide to the main features of the Python language, as well as additional guides to non-essential systems such as the IDLE development environment and general guidelines for migrating from another language.
Information Theory, Inference and Learning Algorithms
David J.C. MacKay - 2002
These topics lie at the heart of many exciting areas of contemporary science and engineering - communication, signal processing, data mining, machine learning, pattern recognition, computational neuroscience, bioinformatics, and cryptography. This textbook introduces theory in tandem with applications. Information theory is taught alongside practical communication systems, such as arithmetic coding for data compression and sparse-graph codes for error-correction. A toolbox of inference techniques, including message-passing algorithms, Monte Carlo methods, and variational approximations, are developed alongside applications of these tools to clustering, convolutional codes, independent component analysis, and neural networks. The final part of the book describes the state of the art in error-correcting codes, including low-density parity-check codes, turbo codes, and digital fountain codes -- the twenty-first century standards for satellite communications, disk drives, and data broadcast. Richly illustrated, filled with worked examples and over 400 exercises, some with detailed solutions, David MacKay's groundbreaking book is ideal for self-learning and for undergraduate or graduate courses. Interludes on crosswords, evolution, and sex provide entertainment along the way. In sum, this is a textbook on information, communication, and coding for a new generation of students, and an unparalleled entry point into these subjects for professionals in areas as diverse as computational biology, financial engineering, and machine learning.
AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order
Kai-Fu Lee - 2018
Kai-Fu Lee—one of the world’s most respected experts on AI and China—reveals that China has suddenly caught up to the US at an astonishingly rapid and unexpected pace.In AI Superpowers, Kai-Fu Lee argues powerfully that because of these unprecedented developments in AI, dramatic changes will be happening much sooner than many of us expected. Indeed, as the US-Sino AI competition begins to heat up, Lee urges the US and China to both accept and to embrace the great responsibilities that come with significant technological power.Most experts already say that AI will have a devastating impact on blue-collar jobs. But Lee predicts that Chinese and American AI will have a strong impact on white-collar jobs as well. Is universal basic income the solution? In Lee’s opinion, probably not. But he provides a clear description of which jobs will be affected and how soon, which jobs can be enhanced with AI, and most importantly, how we can provide solutions to some of the most profound changes in human history that are coming soon.
Beginning Programming with Python for Dummies
John Paul Mueller - 2014
It requires three to five times less time than developing in Java, is a great building block for learning both procedural and object-oriented programming concepts, and is an ideal language for data analysis. Beginning Programming with Python For Dummies is the perfect guide to this dynamic and powerful programming language--even if you've never coded before! Author John Paul Mueller draws on his vast programming knowledge and experience to guide you step-by-step through the syntax and logic of programming with Python and provides several real-world programming examples to give you hands-on experience trying out what you've learned.Provides a solid understanding of basic computer programming concepts and helps familiarize you with syntax and logic Explains the fundamentals of procedural and object-oriented programming Shows how Python is being used for data analysis and other applications Includes short, practical programming samples to apply your skills to real-world programming scenarios Whether you've never written a line of code or are just trying to pick up Python, there's nothing to fear with the fun and friendly Beginning Programming with Python For Dummies leading the way.
Writing Idiomatic Python 2.7.3
Jeff Knupp - 2013
Each idiom comes with a detailed description, example code showing the "wrong" way to do it, and code for the idiomatic, "Pythonic" alternative. *This version of the book is for Python 2.7.3+. There is also a Python 3.3+ version available.* "Writing Idiomatic Python" contains the most common and important Python idioms in a format that maximizes identification and understanding. Each idiom is presented as a recommendation to write some commonly used piece of code. It is followed by an explanation of why the idiom is important. It also contains two code samples: the "Harmful" way to write it and the "Idiomatic" way. * The "Harmful" way helps you identify the idiom in your own code. * The "Idiomatic" way shows you how to easily translate that code into idiomatic Python. This book is perfect for you: * If you're coming to Python from another programming language * If you're learning Python as a first programming language * If you're looking to increase the readability, maintainability, and correctness of your Python code What is "Idiomatic" Python? Every programming language has its own idioms. Programming language idioms are nothing more than the generally accepted way of writing a certain piece of code. Consistently writing idiomatic code has a number of important benefits: * Others can read and understand your code easily * Others can maintain and enhance your code with minimal effort * Your code will contain fewer bugs * Your code will teach others to write correct code without any effort on your part
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Harold Abelson - 1984
This long-awaited revision contains changes throughout the text. There are new implementations of most of the major programming systems in the book, including the interpreters and compilers, and the authors have incorporated many small changes that reflect their experience teaching the course at MIT since the first edition was published. A new theme has been introduced that emphasizes the central role played by different approaches to dealing with time in computational models: objects with state, concurrent programming, functional programming and lazy evaluation, and nondeterministic programming. There are new example sections on higher-order procedures in graphics and on applications of stream processing in numerical programming, and many new exercises. In addition, all the programs have been reworked to run in any Scheme implementation that adheres to the IEEE standard.
Introduction to Algorithms
Thomas H. Cormen - 1989
Each chapter is relatively self-contained and can be used as a unit of study. The algorithms are described in English and in a pseudocode designed to be readable by anyone who has done a little programming. The explanations have been kept elementary without sacrificing depth of coverage or mathematical rigor.
The Twelve-Factor App
Adam Wiggins - 2012
The twelve-factor app is a methodology for building software-as-a-service apps that: - Use declarative formats for setup automation, to minimize time and cost for new developers joining the project; - Have a clean contract with the underlying operating system, offering maximum portability between execution environments; - Are suitable for deployment on modern cloud platforms, obviating the need for servers and systems administration; - Minimize divergence between development and production, enabling continuous deployment for maximum agility; - And can scale up without significant changes to tooling, architecture, or development practices.The twelve-factor methodology can be applied to apps written in any programming language, and which use any combination of backing services (database, queue, memory cache, etc).
Hadoop: The Definitive Guide
Tom White - 2009
Ideal for processing large datasets, the Apache Hadoop framework is an open source implementation of the MapReduce algorithm on which Google built its empire. This comprehensive resource demonstrates how to use Hadoop to build reliable, scalable, distributed systems: programmers will find details for analyzing large datasets, and administrators will learn how to set up and run Hadoop clusters. Complete with case studies that illustrate how Hadoop solves specific problems, this book helps you:Use the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) for storing large datasets, and run distributed computations over those datasets using MapReduce Become familiar with Hadoop's data and I/O building blocks for compression, data integrity, serialization, and persistence Discover common pitfalls and advanced features for writing real-world MapReduce programs Design, build, and administer a dedicated Hadoop cluster, or run Hadoop in the cloud Use Pig, a high-level query language for large-scale data processing Take advantage of HBase, Hadoop's database for structured and semi-structured data Learn ZooKeeper, a toolkit of coordination primitives for building distributed systems If you have lots of data -- whether it's gigabytes or petabytes -- Hadoop is the perfect solution. Hadoop: The Definitive Guide is the most thorough book available on the subject. "Now you have the opportunity to learn about Hadoop from a master-not only of the technology, but also of common sense and plain talk." -- Doug Cutting, Hadoop Founder, Yahoo!
Dive Into Python 3
Mark Pilgrim - 2009
As in the original book, Dive Into Python, each chapter starts with a real, complete code sample, proceeds to pick it apart and explain the pieces, and then puts it all back together in a summary at the end.This book includes:Example programs completely rewritten to illustrate powerful new concepts now available in Python 3: sets, iterators, generators, closures, comprehensions, and much more A detailed case study of porting a major library from Python 2 to Python 3 A comprehensive appendix of all the syntactic and semantic changes in Python 3 This is the perfect resource for you if you need to port applications to Python 3, or if you like to jump into languages fast and get going right away.
Taming Text: How to Find, Organize, and Manipulate It
Grant S. Ingersoll - 2011
This causes real problems for everyday users who need to make sense of all the information available, and for software engineers who want to make their text-based applications more useful and user-friendly. Whether building a search engine for a corporate website, automatically organizing email, or extracting important nuggets of information from the news, dealing with unstructured text can be daunting.Taming Text is a hands-on, example-driven guide to working with unstructured text in the context of real-world applications. It explores how to automatically organize text, using approaches such as full-text search, proper name recognition, clustering, tagging, information extraction, and summarization. This book gives examples illustrating each of these topics, as well as the foundations upon which they are built.Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.