This updated edition of Ross's classic bestseller provides an introduction to elementary probability theory and stochastic processes, and shows how probability theory can be applied to the study of phenomena in fields such as engineering, computer science, management science, the physical and social sciences, and operations research. With the addition of several new sections relating to actuaries, this text is highly recommended by the Society of Actuaries.This book now contains a new section on compound random variables that can be used to establish a recursive formula for computing probability mass functions for a variety of common compounding distributions; a new section on hiddden Markov chains, including the forward and backward approaches for computing the joint probability mass function of the signals, as well as the Viterbi algorithm for determining the most likely sequence of states; and a simplified approach for analyzing nonhomogeneous Poisson processes. There are also additional results on queues relating to the conditional distribution of the number found by an M/M/1 arrival who spends a time t in the system; inspection paradox for M/M/1 queues; and M/G/1 queue with server breakdown. Furthermore, the book includes new examples and exercises, along with compulsory material for new Exam 3 of the Society of Actuaries.This book is essential reading for professionals and students in actuarial science, engineering, operations research, and other fields in applied probability.

    Whether you use Linux, Unix, or Windows, this newly revised edition describes the essential practices previously handed down only from mentor to protege. This wonderfully lucid, often funny cornucopia of information introduces beginners to advanced frameworks valuable for their entire career, yet is structured to help even the most advanced experts through difficult projects.The book's four major sections build your knowledge with the foundational elements of system administration. These sections guide you through better techniques for upgrades and change management, catalog best practices for IT services, and explore various management topics. Chapters are divided into The Basics and The Icing. When you get the Basics right it makes every other aspect of the job easier--such as automating the right things first. The Icing sections contain all the powerful things that can be done on top of the basics to wow customers and managers.Inside, you'll find advice on topics such asThe key elements your networks and systems need in order to make all other services run better Building and running reliable, scalable services, including web, storage, email, printing, and remote access Creating and enforcing security policies Upgrading multiple hosts at one time without creating havoc Planning for and performing flawless scheduled maintenance windows Managing superior helpdesks and customer care Avoiding the -temporary fix- trap Building data centers that improve server uptime Designing networks for speed and reliability Web scaling and security issues Why building a backup system isn't about backups Monitoring what you have and predicting what you will need How technically oriented workers can maintain their job's technical focus (and avoid an unwanted management role) Technical management issues, including morale, organization building, coaching, and maintaining positive visibility Personal skill techniques, including secrets for getting more done each day, ethical dilemmas, managing your boss, and loving your job System administration salary negotiation It's no wonder the first edition received Usenix SAGE's 2005 Outstanding Achievement Award!This eagerly anticipated second edition updates this time-proven classic:Chapters reordered for easier navigationThousands of updates and clarifications based on reader feedbackPlus three entirely new chapters: Web Services, Data Storage, and Documentation

    V. Larson! This 60,000 word book is an Anthology of short stories. Most are Science Fiction mixed with Horror. Others might be called Dark Fantasy... Many have been published previously in various magazines.The Barrier – What does it take to go faster than light?Symptoms of Godhood – How far can you modify a body and still call the results human?Discharged – A long war and an even longer stay in an automated hospital.Teeth at Bedtime – Technology follows us everywhere.The Insect Requirement – Great sacrifices are required for Earth’s early colonists.Blind Eyes – If we can design our own children, how far will we go?TA96 – Do our genes belong to us?Zundra’s Movies – A future where video is created with the mind, and insanity is fun to watch.Pinball – A young man builds his own watchdog.Love Aboard the Kamadeva – A love triangle between two desperate souls and a digital mirage.Starplay – A window into the universe becomes a door.The One-Way Gang – Leaving Earth is easy, but you can never come back.Rusted Metal – What has spent the last century in the basement?Lunar Lotto – Death comes instantly to outlaws in vacuum.The Rollers – Crime has been mostly eliminated by removing all forms of cash... Mostly.

    Today the church is awakening to the truth that ministry is not just the domain of clergy, but belongs to the entire body of Christ. God is moving her to complete her unfinished business of placing the ministry back in the hands of the people. Unfinished Business has played a pivotal part in helping the church reclaim ministry at the grassroots level. First published in 1990 as The New Reformation, it has become a classic resource for church life. Expanding on and updating the original material with fresh examples and references to eight key important movements, this new edition lays foundations for the church to move from: · Passive to active · Maintenance to mission · Clergy to people of God · Teacher/caregiver to equipping enabler Pointing us back to the church as an organism, not an institution, author Greg Ogden shows how each of us is called to help finish the Reformation’s unfinished business: expressing the priesthood of every believer practically in the church, the world, and all avenues of life.

    Algorithms in a Nutshell describes a large number of existing algorithms for solving a variety of problems, and helps you select and implement the right algorithm for your needs -- with just enough math to let you understand and analyze algorithm performance. With its focus on application, rather than theory, this book provides efficient code solutions in several programming languages that you can easily adapt to a specific project. Each major algorithm is presented in the style of a design pattern that includes information to help you understand why and when the algorithm is appropriate. With this book, you will:Solve a particular coding problem or improve on the performance of an existing solutionQuickly locate algorithms that relate to the problems you want to solve, and determine why a particular algorithm is the right one to useGet algorithmic solutions in C, C++, Java, and Ruby with implementation tipsLearn the expected performance of an algorithm, and the conditions it needs to perform at its bestDiscover the impact that similar design decisions have on different algorithmsLearn advanced data structures to improve the efficiency of algorithmsWith Algorithms in a Nutshell, you'll learn how to improve the performance of key algorithms essential for the success of your software applications.

    The library is not self-explanatory or fully consistent, and there are still some traps for the unwary. But the advantages far outweigh the problems, especially if you've got an expert book like Nicolai Josuttis' C++ Standard Library to help you. Josuttis starts with an overview of the standard library, and its key interrelationships with the core language. He presents detailed coverage of the STL, the most powerful, complex, and exciting part of the library; then covers special containers, strings, numeric classes, and internationalization; and helps you get more out of a component you're probably already using: the IOStream library. Every component description includes purpose, design, code examples, practical scenarios, pitfalls, and in most cases, reference sources. Whether you need a tutorial or reference, this book delivers the goods.— (Bill Camarda, bn.com, editor)

    Ignorance is no excuse for the cops and creeps and exterminators whose desires shaped the world. Knowledge is a little power, a dangerous thing, to the cross-dressers and risk-takers who understand enough to damage the world more to their liking. They all collude and collide on a driverless ride, each trying to be the one to break the secret heart of the world. But only one can claim the prize of being the cosmos' corrupt ward boss. Only one can be the Godwalker.

    What makes an operating system modern? According to author Andrew Tanenbaum, it is the awareness of high-demand computer applications--primarily in the areas of multimedia, parallel and distributed computing, and security. The development of faster and more advanced hardware has driven progress in software, including enhancements to the operating system. It is one thing to run an old operating system on current hardware, and another to effectively leverage current hardware to best serve modern software applications. If you don't believe it, install Windows 3.0 on a modern PC and try surfing the Internet or burning a CD. Readers familiar with Tanenbaum's previous text, Operating Systems, know the author is a great proponent of simple design and hands-on experimentation. His earlier book came bundled with the source code for an operating system called Minux, a simple variant of Unix and the platform used by Linus Torvalds to develop Linux. Although this book does not come with any source code, he illustrates many of his points with code fragments (C, usually with Unix system calls). The first half of Modern Operating Systems focuses on traditional operating systems concepts: processes, deadlocks, memory management, I/O, and file systems. There is nothing groundbreaking in these early chapters, but all topics are well covered, each including sections on current research and a set of student problems. It is enlightening to read Tanenbaum's explanations of the design decisions made by past operating systems gurus, including his view that additional research on the problem of deadlocks is impractical except for "keeping otherwise unemployed graph theorists off the streets." It is the second half of the book that differentiates itself from older operating systems texts. Here, each chapter describes an element of what constitutes a modern operating system--awareness of multimedia applications, multiple processors, computer networks, and a high level of security. The chapter on multimedia functionality focuses on such features as handling massive files and providing video-on-demand. Included in the discussion on multiprocessor platforms are clustered computers and distributed computing. Finally, the importance of security is discussed--a lively enumeration of the scores of ways operating systems can be vulnerable to attack, from password security to computer viruses and Internet worms. Included at the end of the book are case studies of two popular operating systems: Unix/Linux and Windows 2000. There is a bias toward the Unix/Linux approach, not surprising given the author's experience and academic bent, but this bias does not detract from Tanenbaum's analysis. Both operating systems are dissected, describing how each implements processes, file systems, memory management, and other operating system fundamentals. Tanenbaum's mantra is simple, accessible operating system design. Given that modern operating systems have extensive features, he is forced to reconcile physical size with simplicity. Toward this end, he makes frequent references to the Frederick Brooks classic The Mythical Man-Month for wisdom on managing large, complex software development projects. He finds both Windows 2000 and Unix/Linux guilty of being too complicated--with a particular skewering of Windows 2000 and its "mammoth Win32 API." A primary culprit is the attempt to make operating systems more "user-friendly," which Tanenbaum views as an excuse for bloated code. The solution is to have smart people, the smallest possible team, and well-defined interactions between various operating systems components. Future operating system design will benefit if the advice in this book is taken to heart. --Pete Ostenson

    In eight chapters, it provides the most thorough coverage of TCP available. It also covers the newest TCP/IP features, including multicasting, path MTU discovery and long fat pipes. The author describes various protocols, including ARP, ICMP and UDP. He utilizes network diagnostic tools to actually show the protocols in action. He also explains how to avoid silly window syndrome (SWS) by using numerous helpful diagrams. This book gives you a broader understanding of concepts like connection establishment, timeout, retransmission and fragmentation. It is ideal for anyone wanting to gain a greater understanding of how the TCP/IP protocols work.

    It starts with core concepts like sending, receiving, routing, and transforming data and then shows readers the entire lifecycle. The book goes in depth on how to test, deal with errors, scale, deploy, and monitor apps and even how to build custom tooling. Written by core developers of Camel and the authors of the first edition, this book distills their experience and practical insights so that readers can tackle integration tasks like a pro.Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.

    Scholars and students need to be able to analyze, design and curate information into useful tools of communication, insight and understanding. This book is the starting point in learning the process and skills of data visualization, teaching the concepts and skills of how to present data and inspiring effective visual design. Benefits of this book: A flexible step-by-step journey that equips you to achieve great data visualization.A curated collection of classic and contemporary examples, giving illustrations of good and bad practice Examples on every page to give creative inspiration Illustrations of good and bad practice show you how to critically evaluate and improve your own work Advice and experience from the best designers in the field Loads of online practical help, checklists, case studies and exercises make this the most comprehensive text available

    When Ruby first burst onto the scene in the Western world, the Pragmatic Programmers were there with the definitive reference manual, Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide.Now in its second edition, author Dave Thomas has expanded the famous Pickaxe book with over 200 pages of new content, covering all the improved language features of Ruby 1.8 and standard library modules. The Pickaxe contains four major sections:An acclaimed tutorial on using Ruby.The definitive reference to the language.Complete documentation on all built-in classes, modules, and methodsComplete descriptions of all 98 standard libraries.If you enjoyed the First Edition, you'll appreciate the expanded content, including enhanced coverage of installation, packaging, documenting Ruby source code, threading and synchronization, and enhancing Ruby's capabilities using C-language extensions. Programming for the World Wide Web is easy in Ruby, with new chapters on XML/RPC, SOAP, distributed Ruby, templating systems, and other web services. There's even a new chapter on unit testing.This is the definitive reference manual for Ruby, including a description of all the standard library modules, a complete reference to all built-in classes and modules (including more than 250 significant changes since the First Edition). Coverage of other features has grown tremendously, including details on how to harness the sophisticated capabilities of irb, so you can dynamically examine and experiment with your running code. Ruby is a wonderfully powerful and useful language, and whenever I'm working with it this book is at my side --Martin Fowler, Chief Scientist, ThoughtWorks

    The book's conceptual presentation focuses on ADTs and the analysis of algorithms for efficiency, with a particular concentration on performance and running time. The second edition contains a new chapter that examines advanced data structures such as red black trees, top down splay trees, treaps, k-d trees, and pairing heaps among others. All code examples now conform to ANSI C and coverage of the formal proofs underpinning several key data structures has been strengthened.

    Many successful applications of machine learning exist already, including systems that analyze past sales data to predict customer behavior, recognize faces or spoken speech, optimize robot behavior so that a task can be completed using minimum resources, and extract knowledge from bioinformatics data. "Introduction to Machine Learning" is a comprehensive textbook on the subject, covering a broad array of topics not usually included in introductory machine learning texts. It discusses many methods based in different fields, including statistics, pattern recognition, neural networks, artificial intelligence, signal processing, control, and data mining, in order to present a unified treatment of machine learning problems and solutions. All learning algorithms are explained so that the student can easily move from the equations in the book to a computer program. The book can be used by advanced undergraduates and graduate students who have completed courses in computer programming, probability, calculus, and linear algebra. It will also be of interest to engineers in the field who are concerned with the application of machine learning methods.After an introduction that defines machine learning and gives examples of machine learning applications, the book covers supervised learning, Bayesian decision theory, parametric methods, multivariate methods, dimensionality reduction, clustering, nonparametric methods, decision trees, linear discrimination, multilayer perceptrons, local models, hidden Markov models, assessing and comparing classification algorithms, combining multiple learners, and reinforcement learning.

    Cryptography is vital to keeping information safe, in an era when the formula to do so becomes more and more challenging. Written by a team of world-renowned cryptography experts, this essential guide is the definitive introduction to all major areas of cryptography: message security, key negotiation, and key management. You'll learn how to think like a cryptographer. You'll discover techniques for building cryptography into products from the start and you'll examine the many technical changes in the field.After a basic overview of cryptography and what it means today, this indispensable resource covers such topics as block ciphers, block modes, hash functions, encryption modes, message authentication codes, implementation issues, negotiation protocols, and more. Helpful examples and hands-on exercises enhance your understanding of the multi-faceted field of cryptography.An author team of internationally recognized cryptography experts updates you on vital topics in the field of cryptography Shows you how to build cryptography into products from the start Examines updates and changes to cryptography Includes coverage on key servers, message security, authentication codes, new standards, block ciphers, message authentication codes, and more Cryptography Engineering gets you up to speed in the ever-evolving field of cryptography.