Itzik Ben-Gan explains key T-SQL concepts and helps you apply your knowledge with hands-on exercises. The book first introduces T-SQL's roots and underlying logic. Next, it walks you through core topics such as single-table queries, joins, subqueries, table expressions, and set operators. Then the book covers more-advanced data-query topics such as window functions, pivoting, and grouping sets. The book also explains how to modify data, work with temporal tables, and handle transactions, and provides an overview of programmable objects. Microsoft Data Platform MVP Itzik Ben-Gan shows you how to: Review core SQL concepts and its mathematical roots Create tables and enforce data integrity Perform effective single-table queries by using the SELECT statement Query multiple tables by using joins, subqueries, table expressions, and set operators Use advanced query techniques such as window functions, pivoting, and grouping sets Insert, update, delete, and merge data Use transactions in a concurrent environment Get started with programmable objects-from variables and batches to user-defined functions, stored procedures, triggers, and dynamic SQL

    

    He solidified his standing as the nation's foremost political forecaster with his near perfect prediction of the 2012 election. Silver is the founder and editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight.com. Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the "prediction paradox": The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future.In keeping with his own aim to seek truth from data, Silver visits the most successful forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. He explains and evaluates how these forecasters think and what bonds they share. What lies behind their success? Are they good-or just lucky? What patterns have they unraveled? And are their forecasts really right? He explores unanticipated commonalities and exposes unexpected juxtapositions. And sometimes, it is not so much how good a prediction is in an absolute sense that matters but how good it is relative to the competition. In other cases, prediction is still a very rudimentary-and dangerous-science.Silver observes that the most accurate forecasters tend to have a superior command of probability, and they tend to be both humble and hardworking. They distinguish the predictable from the unpredictable, and they notice a thousand little details that lead them closer to the truth. Because of their appreciation of probability, they can distinguish the signal from the noise.

    A practical approach to test-driven development for Ruby on Rails using RSpec and related tools.

    In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it.Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted: How early should you get to the airport? What does “public opinion” really represent? Why do tall parents have shorter children? Who really won Florida in 2000? And how likely are you, really, to develop cancer?How Not to Be Wrong presents the surprising revelations behind all of these questions and many more, using the mathematician’s method of analyzing life and exposing the hard-won insights of the academic community to the layman—minus the jargon. Ellenberg chases mathematical threads through a vast range of time and space, from the everyday to the cosmic, encountering, among other things, baseball, Reaganomics, daring lottery schemes, Voltaire, the replicability crisis in psychology, Italian Renaissance painting, artificial languages, the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the coming obesity apocalypse, Antonin Scalia’s views on crime and punishment, the psychology of slime molds, what Facebook can and can’t figure out about you, and the existence of God.Ellenberg pulls from history as well as from the latest theoretical developments to provide those not trained in math with the knowledge they need. Math, as Ellenberg says, is “an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength.” With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. How Not to Be Wrong will show you how.

    Packed with full-color illustrations, photos, and diagrams, Hacking Electronics teaches by doing--each topic features fun, easy-to-follow projects. Discover how to hack sensors, accelerometers, remote controllers, ultrasonic rangefinders, motors, stereo equipment, microphones, and FM transmitters. The final chapter contains useful information on getting the most out of cheap or free bench and software tools. Safely solder, join wires, and connect switches Identify components and read schematic diagrams Understand the how and why of electronics theory Work with transistors, LEDs, and laser diode modules Power your devices with a/c supplies, batteries, or solar panels Get up and running on Arduino boards and pre-made modules Use sensors to detect everything from noxious gas to acceleration Build and modify audio amps, microphones, and transmitters Fix gadgets and scavenge useful parts from dead equipment

    We wouldn’t have unraveled DNA or discovered Neptune or figured out how to put 5,000 songs in your pocket. Though many of us were scared away from this essential, engrossing subject in high school and college, Steven Strogatz’s brilliantly creative, down‑to‑earth history shows that calculus is not about complexity; it’s about simplicity. It harnesses an unreal number—infinity—to tackle real‑world problems, breaking them down into easier ones and then reassembling the answers into solutions that feel miraculous. Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient Greece and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves (a phenomenon predicted by calculus). Strogatz reveals how this form of math rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick; how to explain why Mars goes “backwards” sometimes; how to make electricity with magnets; how to ensure your rocket doesn’t miss the moon; how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS. As Strogatz proves, calculus is truly the language of the universe. By unveiling the principles of that language, Infinite Powers makes us marvel at the world anew.

    Star Schema: The Complete Reference offers in-depth coverage of design principles and their underlying rationales. Organized around design concepts and illustrated with detailed examples, this is a step-by-step guidebook for beginners and a comprehensive resource for experts.This all-inclusive volume begins with dimensional design fundamentals and shows how they fit into diverse data warehouse architectures, including those of W.H. Inmon and Ralph Kimball. The book progresses through a series of advanced techniques that help you address real-world complexity, maximize performance, and adapt to the requirements of BI and ETL software products. You are furnished with design tasks and deliverables that can be incorporated into any project, regardless of architecture or methodology.Master the fundamentals of star schema design and slow change processingIdentify situations that call for multiple stars or cubesEnsure compatibility across subject areas as your data warehouse growsAccommodate repeating attributes, recursive hierarchies, and poor data qualitySupport conflicting requirements for historic dataHandle variation within a business process and correlation of disparate activitiesBoost performance using derived schemas and aggregatesLearn when it's appropriate to adjust designs for BI and ETL tools

    This new edition of Elementary Korean, the most comprehensive and detailed introductory Korean textbook available, offers beginning learners of Korean everything they need to learn the language effectively. Perfect for a first-year university-level course use or the independent language learner. No prior knowledge of the language is necessary. The new format, now with dozens of illustrations, presents Korean vocabulary and Korean grammar in an accessible and understandable manner while extensive conversations and exercises help to reinforce the Korean language and build reading and listening comprehension. This edition includes:An MP3 audio CD and a dedicated website.Rich and highly nuanced examples with brand new illustrations.Detailed but on–technical grammar notes, ample writing exercises with an accompanying answer key.Detailed examples of authentic dialogue.Highly technical grammar notes.Plenty of writing practice.Dialogues, reading texts, and written exercises are in Hangul, the Korean alphabet, so students are quickly able to read and write authentic Korean. Layered lessons are designed to build on each other, making Korean easy to learn from the most popular introductory Korean language textbook available. Included is a revised audio CD that helps learners to speak like a native and a web-based practice component through the University of British Columbia that can help students to learn Korean even beyond the pages of this book. According to the Modern Language Association, enrollment in Korean in American universities is increasing rapidly. Available separately is the companion Elementary Korean Workbook. This helpful workbook will assist you in practicing and polishing your Korean language skills. Each lesson supplements the corresponding lesson in the textbook. There are ten activities per lesson, offering a range of exercises and practice opportunities to enable you to achieve proficiency in everyday, conversational Korean.

    But far from becoming obsolete in this environment⁠—as Michael Lewis' Moneyball once forecast⁠—the role of the scout in today's game has evolved and even expanded. Rather than being the antithesis of a data-driven approach, scouting now represents an essential analytical component in a team's arsenal.Future Value is a thorough dive into the world of the contemporary scout—a world with its own language, methods, metrics, and madness. From rural high schools to elite amateur showcases; from the back fields of spring training to major league draft rooms, FanGraphs' Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel break down the key systems and techniques used to assess talent. It's a process that has moved beyond the quintessential stopwatches and radar guns to include statistical models, countless measurable indicators, and a broader international reach. Practical and probing, discussing wide-ranging topics from tool grades to front office politics, this is an illuminating exploration of what it means to watch baseball like it's your job.

    This practical guide by experimentation leaders at Google, LinkedIn, and Microsoft will teach you how to accelerate innovation using trustworthy online controlled experiments, or A/B tests. Based on practical experiences at companies that each run more than 20,000 controlled experiments a year, the authors share examples, pitfalls, and advice for students and industry professionals getting started with experiments, plus deeper dives into advanced topics for practitioners who want to improve the way they make data-driven decisions. Learn how to - Use the scientific method to evaluate hypotheses using controlled experiments - Define key metrics and ideally an Overall Evaluation Criterion - Test for trustworthiness of the results and alert experimenters to violated assumptions - Build a scalable platform that lowers the marginal cost of experiments close to zero - Avoid pitfalls like carryover effects and Twyman's law - Understand how statistical issues play out in practice.

    How can we catch schools that cheat on standardized tests? How does Netflix know which movies you’ll like? What is causing the rising incidence of autism? As best-selling author Charles Wheelan shows us in Naked Statistics, the right data and a few well-chosen statistical tools can help us answer these questions and more.For those who slept through Stats 101, this book is a lifesaver. Wheelan strips away the arcane and technical details and focuses on the underlying intuition that drives statistical analysis. He clarifies key concepts such as inference, correlation, and regression analysis, reveals how biased or careless parties can manipulate or misrepresent data, and shows us how brilliant and creative researchers are exploiting the valuable data from natural experiments to tackle thorny questions.And in Wheelan’s trademark style, there’s not a dull page in sight. You’ll encounter clever Schlitz Beer marketers leveraging basic probability, an International Sausage Festival illuminating the tenets of the central limit theorem, and a head-scratching choice from the famous game show Let’s Make a Deal—and you’ll come away with insights each time. With the wit, accessibility, and sheer fun that turned Naked Economics into a bestseller, Wheelan defies the odds yet again by bringing another essential, formerly unglamorous discipline to life.

    The patterns apply to the development process as well as to architecture and coding practices. The content is based on a presentation developed by Scott Guthrie and delivered by him at the Norwegian Developers Conference (NDC) in June of 2013 (part 1, part 2), and at Microsoft Tech Ed Australia in September 2013 (part 1, part 2). Many others updated and augmented the content while transitioning it from video to written form. Who should read this book Developers who are curious about developing for the cloud, are considering a move to the cloud, or are new to cloud development will find here a concise overview of the most important concepts and practices they need to know. The concepts are illustrated with concrete examples, and each chapter includes links to other resources that provide more in-depth information. The examples and the links to additional resources are for Microsoft frameworks and services, but the principles illustrated apply to other web development frameworks and cloud environments as well. Developers who are already developing for the cloud may find ideas here that will help make them more successful. Each chapter in the series can be read independently, so you can pick and choose topics that you're interested in. Anyone who watched Scott Guthrie's "Building Real World Cloud Apps with Windows Azure" presentation and wants more details and updated information will find that here. Assumptions This ebook expects that you have experience developing web applications by using Visual Studio and ASP.NET. Familiarity with C# would be helpful in places.

    R has traditionally been difficult for non-statisticians to learn, and most R books assume far too much knowledge to be of help. R for Everyone is the solution. Drawing on his unsurpassed experience teaching new users, professional data scientist Jared P. Lander has written the perfect tutorial for anyone new to statistical programming and modeling. Organized to make learning easy and intuitive, this guide focuses on the 20 percent of R functionality you'll need to accomplish 80 percent of modern data tasks. Lander's self-contained chapters start with the absolute basics, offering extensive hands-on practice and sample code. You'll download and install R; navigate and use the R environment; master basic program control, data import, and manipulation; and walk through several essential tests. Then, building on this foundation, you'll construct several complete models, both linear and nonlinear, and use some data mining techniques. By the time you're done, you won't just know how to write R programs, you'll be ready to tackle the statistical problems you care about most. COVERAGE INCLUDES - Exploring R, RStudio, and R packages - Using R for math: variable types, vectors, calling functions, and more - Exploiting data structures, including data.frames, matrices, and lists - Creating attractive, intuitive statistical graphics - Writing user-defined functions - Controlling program flow with if, ifelse, and complex checks - Improving program efficiency with group manipulations - Combining and reshaping multiple datasets - Manipulating strings using R's facilities and regular expressions - Creating normal, binomial, and Poisson probability distributions - Programming basic statistics: mean, standard deviation, and t-tests - Building linear, generalized linear, and nonlinear models - Assessing the quality of models and variable selection - Preventing overfitting, using the Elastic Net and Bayesian methods - Analyzing univariate and multivariate time series data - Grouping data via K-means and hierarchical clustering - Preparing reports, slideshows, and web pages with knitr - Building reusable R packages with devtools and Rcpp - Getting involved with the R global community

    The textbook covers all-important workbenches of CATIA V5R17 with a thorough explanation of all commands, options, and their applications to create real-world products. About 55 mechanical engineering industry examples are used as tutorials and an additional 35 as exercises to ensure that the user can relate their knowledge and understand the design techniques used in the industry to design a product. After reading the textbook, the user will be able to create solid parts, assemblies, drawing views with bill of materials, surface models, and Sheet metal components. Also, the user will learn the editing techniques that are essential to make a successful design. In this book, the author emphasizes on the solid modeling techniques that improve the productivity and efficiency of the user. Salient Features of the Textbook Consists of 15 chapters that are organized in a pedagogical sequence. These chapters cover the Sketching, Modeling, Assembly, Drafting, Wireframe and Surface Design, and Generative Sheetmetal workbenches of CATIA V5R17. The first page of every chapter summarizes the topics that will be covered in it. Additional information is provided throughout the book in the form of tips and notes. Self-evaluation test and review questions are provided at the end of each chapter so that the users can assess their knowledge.Free Teaching and Learning Resources Online technical support by contacting techsupport@cadcim.com. All programs used in exercises and examples. Customizable PowerPoint presentations of all chapters in the textbook li>Instructor s Guide with solutions to all review questions and exercises in the textbook. Student projects to enhance the skills Class tests that can be used by faculty in the class To access these free teaching resources, please send your contact information to sales@cadcim.com, mentioning clearly your name, designation, university/college, street street address, city, state, zip, and country.