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Artificial Life: An Overview by Christopher G. Langton
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Designing Data-Intensive Applications
Martin Kleppmann - 2015
Difficult issues need to be figured out, such as scalability, consistency, reliability, efficiency, and maintainability. In addition, we have an overwhelming variety of tools, including relational databases, NoSQL datastores, stream or batch processors, and message brokers. What are the right choices for your application? How do you make sense of all these buzzwords?In this practical and comprehensive guide, author Martin Kleppmann helps you navigate this diverse landscape by examining the pros and cons of various technologies for processing and storing data. Software keeps changing, but the fundamental principles remain the same. With this book, software engineers and architects will learn how to apply those ideas in practice, and how to make full use of data in modern applications. Peer under the hood of the systems you already use, and learn how to use and operate them more effectively Make informed decisions by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of different tools Navigate the trade-offs around consistency, scalability, fault tolerance, and complexity Understand the distributed systems research upon which modern databases are built Peek behind the scenes of major online services, and learn from their architectures
Computer Lib/Dream Machines
Ted Nelson - 1974
His rallying cry "Down with Cybercrud" is against the centralization of computers such as that performed by IBM at the time, as well as against what he sees as the intentional untruths that "computer people" tell to non-computer people to keep them from understanding computers. In Dream Machines, Nelson covers the flexible media potential of the computer, which was shockingly new at the time.
Thomas' Calculus, Early Transcendentals, Media Upgrade
George B. Thomas Jr. - 2002
This book offers a full range of exercises, a precise and conceptual presentation, and a new media package designed specifically to meet the needs of today's readers. The exercises gradually increase in difficulty, helping readers learn to generalize and apply the concepts. The refined table of contents introduces the exponential, logarithmic, and trigonometric functions in Chapter 7 of the text.KEY TOPICS Functions, Limits and Continuity, Differentiation, Applications of Derivatives, Integration, Applications of Definite Integrals, Integrals and Transcendental Functions, Techniques of Integration, Further Applications of Integration, Conic Sections and Polar Coordinates, Infinite Sequences and Series, Vectors and the Geometry of Space, Vector-Valued Functions and Motion in Space, Partial Derivatives, Multiple Integrals, Integration in Vector Fields.MARKET For all readers interested in Calculus.
Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation
John E. Hopcroft - 1979
With this long-awaited revision, the authors continue to present the theory in a concise and straightforward manner, now with an eye out for the practical applications. They have revised this book to make it more accessible to today's students, including the addition of more material on writing proofs, more figures and pictures to convey ideas, side-boxes to highlight other interesting material, and a less formal writing style. Exercises at the end of each chapter, including some new, easier exercises, help readers confirm and enhance their understanding of the material. *NEW! Completely rewritten to be less formal, providing more accessibility to todays students. *NEW! Increased usage of figures and pictures to help convey ideas. *NEW! More detail and intuition provided for definitions and proofs. *NEW! Provides special side-boxes to present supplemental material that may be of interest to readers. *NEW! Includes more exercises, including many at a lower level. *NEW! Presents program-like notation for PDAs and Turing machines. *NEW! Increas
Practical Statistics for Data Scientists: 50 Essential Concepts
Peter Bruce - 2017
Courses and books on basic statistics rarely cover the topic from a data science perspective. This practical guide explains how to apply various statistical methods to data science, tells you how to avoid their misuse, and gives you advice on what's important and what's not.Many data science resources incorporate statistical methods but lack a deeper statistical perspective. If you're familiar with the R programming language, and have some exposure to statistics, this quick reference bridges the gap in an accessible, readable format.With this book, you'll learn:Why exploratory data analysis is a key preliminary step in data scienceHow random sampling can reduce bias and yield a higher quality dataset, even with big dataHow the principles of experimental design yield definitive answers to questionsHow to use regression to estimate outcomes and detect anomaliesKey classification techniques for predicting which categories a record belongs toStatistical machine learning methods that "learn" from dataUnsupervised learning methods for extracting meaning from unlabeled data
Learn You a Haskell for Great Good!
Miran Lipovača - 2011
Learn You a Haskell for Great Good! introduces programmers familiar with imperative languages (such as C++, Java, or Python) to the unique aspects of functional programming. Packed with jokes, pop culture references, and the author's own hilarious artwork, Learn You a Haskell for Great Good! eases the learning curve of this complex language, and is a perfect starting point for any programmer looking to expand his or her horizons. The well-known web tutorial on which this book is based is widely regarded as the best way for beginners to learn Haskell, and receives over 30,000 unique visitors monthly.
Practical Cryptography
Niels Ferguson - 2003
The gold standard for attaining security is cryptography because it provides the most reliable tools for storing or transmitting digital information. Written by Niels Ferguson, lead cryptographer for Counterpane, Bruce Schneier's security company, and Bruce Schneier himself, this is the much anticipated follow-up book to Schneier's seminal encyclopedic reference, Applied Cryptography, Second Edition (0-471-11709-9), which has sold more than 150,000 copies. Niels Ferguson (Amsterdam, Netherlands) is a cryptographic engineer and consultant at Counterpane Internet Security. He has extensive experience in the creation and design of security algorithms, protocols, and multinational security infrastructures. Previously, Ferguson was a cryptographer for DigiCash and CWI. At CWI he developed the first generation of off-line payment protocols. He has published numerous scientific papers. Bruce Schneier (Minneapolis, MN) is Founder and Chief Technical Officer at Counterpane Internet Security, a managed-security monitoring company. He is also the author of Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World (0-471-25311-1).
The Ascension Myth Complete Omnibus (Books 1-12): Awakened, Activated, Called, Sanctioned, Rebirth, Retribution, Cloaked, Bourne. Committed, Subversion, Invasion, Ascension
Ell Leigh Clark - 2020
Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology
Howard Rheingold - 1985
C. R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Bob Taylor, and Alan Kay.The digital revolution did not begin with the teenage millionaires of Silicon Valley, claims Howard Rheingold, but with such early intellectual giants as Charles Babbage, George Boole, and John von Neumann. In a highly engaging style, Rheingold tells the story of what he calls the patriarchs, pioneers, and infonauts of the computer, focusing in particular on such pioneers as J. C. R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Bob Taylor, and Alan Kay. Taking the reader step by step from nineteenth-century mathematics to contemporary computing, he introduces a fascinating collection of eccentrics, mavericks, geniuses, and visionaries.The book was originally published in 1985, and Rheingold's attempt to envision computing in the 1990s turns out to have been remarkably prescient. This edition contains an afterword, in which Rheingold interviews some of the pioneers discussed in the book. As an exercise in what he calls retrospective futurism, Rheingold also looks back at how he looked forward.
Smart Machines: IBM's Watson and the Era of Cognitive Computing
John E. Kelly III - 2013
The victory of IBM's Watson on the television quiz show Jeopardy! revealed how scientists and engineers at IBM and elsewhere are pushing the boundaries of science and technology to create machines that sense, learn, reason, and interact with people in new ways to provide insight and advice.In Smart Machines, John E. Kelly III, director of IBM Research, and Steve Hamm, a writer at IBM and a former business and technology journalist, introduce the fascinating world of "cognitive systems" to general audiences and provide a window into the future of computing. Cognitive systems promise to penetrate complexity and assist people and organizations in better decision making. They can help doctors evaluate and treat patients, augment the ways we see, anticipate major weather events, and contribute to smarter urban planning. Kelly and Hamm's comprehensive perspective describes this technology inside and out and explains how it will help us conquer the harnessing and understanding of "big data," one of the major computing challenges facing businesses and governments in the coming decades. Absorbing and impassioned, their book will inspire governments, academics, and the global tech industry to work together to power this exciting wave in innovation.
Learning XML
Erik T. Ray - 2001
Fortunately, there s a solution: Erik T. Ray s Learning XML, Second Edition. This book presents an outstanding birds-eye view of the XML landscape. It s definitely not a programming book (though it does introduce some key XML programming issues). Rather, it s focused on key ideas you need to understand whatever you want to do with XML. That could be document management, web or print content delivery, application integration, B2B commerce, data storage, internationalization -- you name it.Ray s day job is software developer and XML specialist at O Reilly. There, he s helped to implement a complete publishing solution, using DocBook-XML and Perl to produce books in print, on CD-ROM, and for online delivery. So he understands XML from the real-world point of view of someone with a job to do. His first goal is to take on the big questions. First, What is XML? Ray attacks this question from multiple angles, introducing XML as a general-purpose information storage system, a markup language toolkit, and an open standard (or, increasingly, a collection of standards). What can (and can t) you do with XML? What s the history that led us here? And what tools do you need to get started? Next, he introduces the basic building blocks of XML markup and all XML-derived languages: stuff you ll need to know regardless of your goals. Through easy examples, you ll understand elements, attributes, entities, and processing instructions -- and how they fit together in a well-formed XML document. Then, it s on to representing information with XML -- in other words, understanding the nature and planning the structure of the documents you ll be using. Ray starts simply, then builds on his basic examples to discuss narrative documents with text flows, block and inline elements, and titled sections. Once you can handle those, he discusses more complex information modeling, as used in specialized markup languages such as VML. This edition contains an entirely new chapter on XML Schemas -- what he calls the shepherds that keep documents from straying outside of the herd and causing trouble. Schemas, of course, have become hugely important. This is one of the best plain-English introductions to the topic we ve seen. Ray then turns to presentation, introducing CSS stylesheets, basic usage, rule matching, properties, and more. A little later on, he returns to the subject -- this time with a complete introduction to XSL-FO that illuminates two powerful examples. The first is TEI-XML, a markup language for scholarly documents (Ray presents a Shakespearean sonnet, appropriately coded). The second is the immensely powerful DocBook -- which, as we ve observed, Ray knows inside and out. Learning XML is superbly written. Clear explanations. Simple examples. Great metaphors and analogies. And excellent introductions to nearly every topic that matters, from links to presentation, transformation to internationalization. If you re just starting out with XML, you re lucky to have it. Bill CamardaBill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks for Dummies, Second Edition.
Understanding Cryptography: A Textbook For Students And Practitioners
Christof Paar - 2009
Today's designers need a comprehensive understanding of applied cryptography.After an introduction to cryptography and data security, the authors explain the main techniques in modern cryptography, with chapters addressing stream ciphers, the Data Encryption Standard (DES) and 3DES, the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), block ciphers, the RSA cryptosystem, public-key cryptosystems based on the discrete logarithm problem, elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC), digital signatures, hash functions, Message Authentication Codes (MACs), and methods for key establishment, including certificates and public-key infrastructure (PKI). Throughout the book, the authors focus on communicating the essentials and keeping the mathematics to a minimum, and they move quickly from explaining the foundations to describing practical implementations, including recent topics such as lightweight ciphers for RFIDs and mobile devices, and current key-length recommendations.The authors have considerable experience teaching applied cryptography to engineering and computer science students and to professionals, and they make extensive use of examples, problems, and chapter reviews, while the book's website offers slides, projects and links to further resources. This is a suitable textbook for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses and also for self-study by engineers.
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.
The Golden Ticket: P, Np, and the Search for the Impossible
Lance Fortnow - 2013
Simply stated, it asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly checked by computer can also be quickly solved by computer. The Golden Ticket provides a nontechnical introduction to P-NP, its rich history, and its algorithmic implications for everything we do with computers and beyond. Lance Fortnow traces the history and development of P-NP, giving examples from a variety of disciplines, including economics, physics, and biology. He explores problems that capture the full difficulty of the P-NP dilemma, from discovering the shortest route through all the rides at Disney World to finding large groups of friends on Facebook. The Golden Ticket explores what we truly can and cannot achieve computationally, describing the benefits and unexpected challenges of this compelling problem.
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach
Stuart Russell - 1994
The long-anticipated revision of this best-selling text offers the most comprehensive, up-to-date introduction to the theory and practice of artificial intelligence. *NEW-Nontechnical learning material-Accompanies each part of the book. *NEW-The Internet as a sample application for intelligent systems-Added in several places including logical agents, planning, and natural language. *NEW-Increased coverage of material - Includes expanded coverage of: default reasoning and truth maintenance systems, including multi-agent/distributed AI and game theory; probabilistic approaches to learning including EM; more detailed descriptions of probabilistic inference algorithms. *NEW-Updated and expanded exercises-75% of the exercises are revised, with 100 new exercises. *NEW-On-line Java software. *Makes it easy for students to do projects on the web using intelligent agents. *A unified, agent-based approach to AI-Organizes the material around the task of building intelligent agents. *Comprehensive, up-to-date coverage-Includes a unified view of the field organized around the rational decision making pa