Performability modelling and evaluation brings together two disciplines that have long been treated separately in different communities: computer and communication system performance evaluation and system reliability and availability evaluation.

• Provides a single-source reference covering of all aspects of performability evaluation.
• Introduces a new approach to assessing the performance and dependability of systems thus revealing system characteristics that cannot be uncovered separately by performance or reliability evaluation.
• Explains how systems can operate partially in the presence of failures by discussing:

The only complete guide to all aspects and uses of simulation—from the international leaders in the field

There has never been a single definitive source of key information on all facets of discrete-event simulation and its applications to major industries. The Handbook of Simulation brings together the contributions of leading academics, practitioners, and software developers to offer authoritative coverage of the principles, techniques, and uses of discrete-event simulation.

Comprehensive in scope and thorough in approach, the Handbook is the one reference on discrete-event simulation that every industrial engineer, management scientist, computer scientist, operations manager, or operations researcher involved in problem-solving should own, with an in-depth examination of:

• Simulation methodology, from experimental design to data analysis and more
• Recent advances, such as object-oriented simulation, on-line simulation, and parallel and distributed simulation
• Applications across a full range of manufacturing and service industries
• Guidelines for successful simulations and sound simulation project management
• Simulation software and simulation industry vendors

This practical guide offers a short course on scaling CouchDB to meet the capacity needs of your distributed application. Through a series of scenario-based examples, this book lets you explore several methods for creating a system that can accommodate growth and meet expected demand. In the process, you learn about several tools that can help you with replication, load balancing, clustering, and load testing and monitoring.Apply performance tips for tuning your database Replicate data, using Futon and CouchDB's RESTful interface Distribute CouchDB's workload through load balancing Learn options for creating a cluster of CouchDB nodes, including BigCouch, Lounge, and Pillow Conduct distributed load testing with Tsung

This book offers an up-to-date coverage of the basic principles and of the tools of Bayesian inference in econometrics. Bayesian inference is a branch of statistics that integrates explicitly both data and prior (possibly subjective) information in model building , estimation and evaluation. The book then shows how to use Bayesian methods in a range of models especially suited to the analysis of macroeconomic and financial time series.

An exploration of the basis for social and economic behaviour. Using cellular automata in particular, the authors model various factors that are involved in a system of individuals who interact socially and economically with one another. Computer simulations in the social sciences provide a laboratory in which qualitative ideas about social and economic interactions can be tested. This brings a new dimension to the science, where 'explanations' abound, but are rarely subject to much experimental testing. The authors have chosen Mathematica because it has a number of features which make it uniquely qualified for use by social scientists, especially those without expertise in computer programming. Further, users can easily access and readily interact with the various 3.0 Mathematica notebooks, plus other data to be found at www.telospub.com.

A practical guide to SketchUp addressing the specific needs of interior designers Already a common and popular tool for architects and landscape architects, SketchUp is increasingly finding a place in the professional workflow of interior designers. SketchUp for Interior Design is a practical introduction for interior designers and students who want to learn to use the software for their unique needs. The book covers the basics of creating 3D models before showing how to create space plans, model furniture, cabinetry, and accessories, experiment with colors and materials, incorporate manufacturers' models into project plans, and create final presentations and animated walk-throughs for clients. Each chapter includes clear explanations and helpful illustrations to make this an ideal introduction to the topic. * Includes downloadable sample models and 39 tutorial videos * Features sample questions and activities for instructors and additional online resources for students and self-learners * Provides instruction on using SketchUp in both PC and Mac formats

This book illustrates the ease with which various features of LISREL 8 and PRELIS 2 can be implemented in addressing research questions that lend themselves to SEM. Its purpose is threefold: (a) to present a nonmathmatical introduction to basic concepts associated with SEM, (b) to demonstrate basic applications of SEM using both the DOS and Windows versions of LISREL 8, as well as both the LISREL and SIMPLIS lexicons, and (c) to highlight particular features of the LISREL 8 and PRELIS 2 progams that address important caveats related to SEM analyses.

This book is intended neither as a text on the topic of SEM, nor as a comprehensive review of the many statistical funcitons available in the LISREL 8 and PRELIS 2 programs. Rather, the intent is to provide a practical guide to SEM using the LISREL approach. As such, the reader is "walked through" a diversity of SEM applications that include both factor analytic and full latent variable models, as well as a variety of data management procedures.

Simulations and the Future of Learning offers trainers and educators the information and perspective they need to understand, design, build, and deploy computer simulations for this generation. Looking back on his recent first-hand experience as lead designer for an advanced leadership development simulation, author Clark Aldrich has created a detailed case study of the creation and deployment of an e-learning simulation that had the development cycle of a modern computer game. With this book Aldrich, a leader in the e-learning field, has created an intriguing roadmap for the future of learning while taking us along on an entertaining rollercoaster ride of trial and error, success and failure. Simulations and the Future of Learning outlines the design principles and critical decisions around any simulation's components— the interface, the physics and animation systems, the artificial intelligence, and sets and figures. Using this accessible resource, readers will learn how to create and evaluate successful simulations that have the following characteristics: authentic and relevant scenarios; applied pressure situations that tap user's emotion and force them to act; a sense of unrestricted options; and replayability.

How do you use R to import, manage, visualize, and analyze real-world data? With this short, hands-on tutorial, you learn how to collect online data, massage it into a reasonable form, and work with it using R facilities to interact with web servers, parse HTML and XML, and more. Rather than use canned sample data, you'll plot and analyze current home foreclosure auctions in Philadelphia.

This practical mashup exercise shows you how to access spatial data in several formats locally and over the Web to produce a map of home foreclosures. It's an excellent way to explore how the R environment works with R packages and performs statistical analysis.Parse messy data from public foreclosure auction postings Plot the data using R's PBSmapping package Import US Census data to add context to foreclosure data Use R's lattice and latticeExtra packages for data visualization Create multidimensional correlation graphs with the pairs() scatterplot matrix package

If you're a developer looking to supplement your own data tools and services, this concise ebook covers the most useful sources of public data available today. You'll find useful information on APIs that offer broad coverage, tie their data to the outside world, and are either accessible online or feature downloadable bulk data. You'll also find code and helpful links.

This guide organizes APIs by the subjects they cover--such as websites, people, or places--so you can quickly locate the best resources for augmenting the data you handle in your own service. Categories include: Website tools such as WHOIS, bit.ly, and Compete Services that use email addresses as search terms, including Github Finding information from just a name, with APIs such as WhitePages Services, such as Klout, for locating people with Facebook and Twitter accounts Search APIs, including BOSS and Wikipedia Geographical data sources, including SimpleGeo and U.S. Census Company information APIs, such as CrunchBase and ZoomInfo APIs that list IP addresses, such as MaxMind Services that list books, films, music, and products

Unlike many AutoCAD competitors, this book covers only the basics and uses mixed units -inches, meters, feet, kilometers, etc., to illustrate the myriad drawing and editing tools for this popular application. Use the DVD to set up drawing exercises and projects, see all of the book s figures in color, and draw with a trial version of AutoCAD 2012. AutoCAD 2012 Beginning and Intermediate includes 50 exercises or mini-workshops, that complete small projects from concept through actual plotting. Solving all of the workshops will simulate the creation of two full projects (architectural and mechanical) from beginning to end, without overlooking any of the basic commands and functions in AutoCAD 2012.BRIEF TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1: AutoCAD 2012 Basics. 2: Precise Drafting in AutoCAD 2012. 3: Modifying Commands. 4: Construction Commands. 5: Layers and Inquiry Commands. 6: Blocks and Hatch. 7: Text and Tables. 8: Dimensioning. 9: Plotting. 10: Projects."

This two-volume set (CCIS 175 and CCIS 176) constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Education, Simulation and Modeling, CSEM 2011, held in Wuhan, China, in June 2011. The 148 revised full papers presented in both volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from a large number of submissions. The papers cover issues such as multimedia and its application, robotization and automation, mechatronics, computer education, modern education research, control systems, data mining, knowledge management, image processing, communication software, database technology, artificial intelligence, computational intelligence, simulation and modeling, agent based simulation, biomedical visualization, device simulation & modeling, object-oriented simulation, Web and security visualization, vision and visualization, coupling dynamic modeling theory, discretization method, and modeling method research.

Robert Axelrod is widely known for his groundbreaking work in game theory and complexity theory. He is a leader in applying computer modeling to social science problems. His book "The Evolution of Cooperation" has been hailed as a seminal contribution and has been translated into eight languages since its initial publication. The "Complexity of Cooperation" is a sequel to that landmark book. It collects seven essays, originally published in a broad range of journals, and adds an extensive new introduction to the collection, along with new prefaces to each essay and a useful new appendix of additional resources. Written in Axelrod's acclaimed, accessible style, this collection serves as an introductory text on complexity theory and computer modeling in the social sciences and as an overview of the current state of the art in the field.

The articles move beyond the basic paradigm of the Prisoner's Dilemma to study a rich set of issues, including how to cope with errors in perception or implementation, how norms emerge, and how new political actors and regions of shared culture can develop. They use the shared methodology of agent-based modeling, a powerful technique that specifies the rules of interaction between individuals and uses computer simulation to discover emergent properties of the social system. "The Complexity of Cooperation" is essential reading for all social scientists who are interested in issues of cooperation and complexity

If you want to learn to create 3-D models using Google SketchUp, this "Missing Manual" is the ideal place to start. Filled with step-by-step tutorials, this entertaining, reader-friendly guide will have you creating detailed 3-D objects, including building plans, furniture, landscaping plans - even characters for computer games - in no time. "Google SketchUp: The Missing Manual" offers a hands-on tour of the program, with crystal-clear instructions for using every feature and lots of real-world examples to help you pick up the practical skills you need. It helps you learn to use the basic tools, build and animate models, and place your objects in Google Earth.With this book, you will: learn your way around the SketchUp workspace, and explore the differences between working in 2-D and 3-D; build simple 3-D shapes, save them as reusable components, and use SketchUp's Outliner to show or hide them as you work; tackle a complicated model building with lots of detail, and discover timesaving tools for using many components; animate the model by creating an interior walkthrough of your building; and, dress up your model with realistic material shading and shadows, and place it in Google Earth. It's easy to get started. Just download the program from Google.com, and follow the instructions in this book. You'll become a SketchUp master in a jiffy.

Create stunning renders of your 3ds Max models in mental ray with this concise guide. Learn all of the essential concepts such as indirect illumination, materials, render options, shaders, and lighting. Rendering with mental ray and 3ds Max, Second Edition is now revised to cover Autodesk Revit and special effects. The companion website includes all of the necessary project files from inside the book.

Even if you've never touched a 3D printer, these projects will excite and empower you to learn new skills, extend your current abilities, and awaken your creative impulses. Each project uses a unique combination of electronics, hand assembly techniques, custom 3D-printed parts, and software, while teaching you how to think through and execute your own ideas. Written by the founder of Printrbot, his staff, and veteran DIY authors, this book of projects exemplifies the broad range of highly personalized, limit-pushing project possibilities of 3D printing when combined with affordable electronic components and materials. In Make: 3D Printing Projects, you'll: Print and assemble a modular lamp that's suitable for beginners--and quickly gets you incorporating electronics into 3D-printed structures. Learn about RC vehicles by fabricating--and driving--your own sleek, shiny, and fast Inverted Trike. Model a 1950s-style Raygun Pen through a step-by-step primer on how to augment an existing object through rapid prototyping. Fabricate a fully functional, battery-powered screwdriver, while learning how to tear down and reconstruct your own tools. Get hands-on with animatronics by building your own set of life-like mechanical eyes. Make a Raspberry Pi robot that rides a monorail of string, can turn corners, runs its own web server, streams video, and is remote-controlled from your phone. Build and customize a bubble-blowing robot, flower watering contraption, and a DIY camera gimbal.

There's growing interest in learning how to analyze streaming data in large-scale systems such as web traffic, financial transactions, machine logs, industrial sensors, and many others. But analyzing data streams at scale has been difficult to do well--until now. This practical book delivers a deep introduction to Apache Flink, a highly innovative open source stream processor with a surprising range of capabilities. Authors Ellen Friedman and Kostas Tzoumas show technical and nontechnical readers alike how Flink is engineered to overcome significant tradeoffs that have limited the effectiveness of other approaches to stream processing. You'll also learn how Flink has the ability to handle both stream and batch data processing with one technology. * Learn the consequences of not doing streaming well--in retail and marketing, IoT, telecom, and banking and finance* Explore how to design data architecture to gain the best advantage from stream processing* Get an overview of Flink's capabilities and features, along with examples of how companies use Flink, including in production* Take a technical dive into Flink, and learn how it handles time and stateful computation* Examine how Flink processes both streaming (unbounded) and batch (bounded) data without sacrificing performance

This book is the first to provide a comprehensive survey of the computational models and methodologies used for studying the evolution and origin of language and communication. Comprising contributions from the most influential figures in the field, it presents and summarises the state-of-the-art in computational approaches to language evolution, and highlights new lines of development.Essential reading for researchers and students in the fields of evolutionary and adaptive systems, language evolution modelling and linguistics, it will also be of interest to researchers working on applications of neural networks to language problems. Furthermore, due to the fact that language evolution models use multi-agent methodologies, it will also be of great interest to computer scientists working on multi-agent systems, robotics and internet agents.

From climate change forecasts and pandemic maps to Lego sets and Ancestry algorithms, models encompass our world and our lives. In her thought-provoking new book, Annabel Wharton begins with a definition drawn from the quantitative sciences and the philosophy of science but holds that history and critical cultural theory are essential to a fuller understanding of modeling. Considering changes in the medical body model and the architectural model, from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, Wharton demonstrates the ways in which all models are historical and political. Examining how cadavers have been described, exhibited, and visually rendered, she highlights the historical dimension of the modified body and its depictions. Analyzing the varied reworkings of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem-including by monumental commanderies of the Knights Templar, Alberti's Rucellai Tomb in Florence, Franciscans' olive wood replicas, and video game renderings-she foregrounds the political force of architectural representations. And considering black boxes-instruments whose inputs we control and whose outputs we interpret, but whose inner workings are beyond our comprehension-she surveys the threats posed by such opaque computational models, warning of the dangers that models pose when humans lose control of the means by which they are generated and understood. Engaging and wide-ranging, Models and World Making conjures new ways of seeing and critically evaluating how we make and remake the world in which we live.

If you want to use CouchDB to support real-world applications, you'll need to create MapReduce views that let you query this document-oriented database for meaningful data. With this short and concise ebook, you'll learn how to create a variety of MapReduce views to help you query and aggregate data in CouchDB's large, distributed datasets.

You'll get step-by-step instructions and lots of sample code to create and explore several MapReduce views through the course of the book, using an example database you construct. To work with these different views, you'll learn how to use the Futon web administration console and the cURL command line tool that come with CouchDB. Learn how the Map and Reduce steps work independently and together to index your data Use the example database to create several temporary views based on different criteria Discover the uses of Map and Reduce JavaScript functions Convert your temporary views to permanent views within a design document Learn several options for querying the data within your views Limit the number of results returned, skip some results, or reverse the order of the output Group your results by exact keys or by parts of keys

Bradley Holt, co-founder of the creative services firm Found Line, is a web developer and entrepreneur ten years of PHP and MySQL experience. He began using CouchDB before the release of version 1.0. Bradley is an active member of the PHP community, and can be reached at bradley-holt.com.

Unity brings you ever closer to the "author once, deploy anywhere" dream. With its multiplatform capabilities, you can target desktop, web, mobile devices, and consoles using a single development engine. Little wonder that Unity has quickly become the #1 game engine out there. Mastering Unity is absolutely essential in an increasingly competitive games market where agility is expected, yet until now practical tutorials were nearly impossible to find. Creating Games with Unity and Maya gives you with an end-to-end solution for Unity game development with Maya. Written by a twelve-year veteran of the 3D animation and games industry and professor of 3D animation, this book takes you step-by-step through the process of developing an entire game from scratch-including coding, art, production, and deployment. This accessible guide provides a "non-programmer" entry point to the world of game creation. Aspiring developers with little or no coding experience will learn character development in Maya, scripts, GUI interface, and first- and third-person interactions.

The modern ecologist usually works in both the field and laboratory, uses statistics and computers, and often works with ecological concepts that are model-based, if not model-driven. How do we make the field and laboratory coherent? How do we link models and data? How do we use statistics to help experimentation? How do we integrate modeling and statistics? How do we confront multiple hypotheses with data and assign degrees of belief to different hypotheses? How do we deal with time series (in which data are linked from one measurement to the next) or put multiple sources of data into one inferential framework? These are the kinds of questions asked and answered by "The Ecological Detective."

Ray Hilborn and Marc Mangel investigate ecological data much as a detective would investigate a crime scene by trying different hypotheses until a coherent picture emerges. The book is not a set of pat statistical procedures but rather an approach. The Ecological Detective makes liberal use of computer programming for the generation of hypotheses, exploration of data, and the comparison of different models. The authors' attitude is one of exploration, both statistical and graphical. The background required is minimal, so that students with an undergraduate course in statistics and ecology can profitably add this work to their tool-kit for solving ecological problems.

A Hands-On Introduction that Gets You Up and Running Fast Introduction to Siman V and Cinema V This hands-on book/disk package is a practical guide to SIMAN V, and its animator, Cinema V. Written by a simulation expert and his team, this focused resource concentrates on the language, rather than the theory of simulation. It introduces the process-interaction features of SIMAN, and shows you how to use them efficiently and productively. Introduction to Siman V teaches by example, including a wealth of computer inputs and outputs. Plus, it features a single running example throughout the text -- an example that becomes increasingly complex as you master each new feature. Here's How the Book is Organized:

• Chapter 1 provides an overview of the simulation process
• Chapter 2 provides an overview of Siman V
• Chapters 3-11 describe Siman V using examples that increase in complexity as new features are added
• Chapters 12 and 13 describe advanced features of Siman V
• Chapter 14 introduces Cinema V within the Arena environment

This simple-to-follow textbook/reference provides an invaluable guide to object-oriented C++ programming for scientific computing. Through a series of clear and concise discussions, the key features most useful to the novice programmer are explored, enabling the reader to quickly master the basics and build the confidence to investigate less well-used features when needed. The text presents a hands-on approach that emphasizes the benefits of learning by example, stressing the importance of a clear programming style to minimise the introduction of errors into the code, and offering an extensive selection of practice exercises. This updated and enhanced new edition includes additional material on software testing, and on some new features introduced in modern C++ standards such as C++11. Topics and features: presents a practical treatment of the C++ programming language for applications in scientific computing; reviews the essentials of procedural programming in C++, covering variables, flow of control, input and output, pointers, functions and reference variables; introduces the concept of classes, showcasing the main features of object-orientation, and discusses such advanced C++ features as templates and exceptions; examines the development of a collection of classes for linear algebra calculations, and presents an introduction to parallel computing using MPI; describes how to construct an object-oriented library for solving second order differential equations; contains appendices reviewing linear algebra and useful programming constructs, together with solutions to selected exercises; provides exercises and programming tips at the end of every chapter, and supporting code at an associated website. This accessible textbook is a "must-read" for programmers of all levels of expertise. Basic familiarity with concepts such as operations between vectors and matrices, and the Newton-Raphson method for finding the roots of non-linear equations, would be an advantage, but extensive knowledge of the underlying mathematics is not assumed.

Learn how to animate using the world's most advanced free software for 3D content creation Key Features * Master the essentials of 3D animation with enjoyable step-by-step exercises * Get inspired by expert techniques used by professional Blender animators * Learn unique Blender insights and secrets that you won't find in its documentation Book Description Blender's supportive community and powerful feature set make it an indispensable tool for creating 3D animations. Completely free and open source, Blender holds its own against other 3D applications that cost hundreds, even thousands of dollars. However, learning the software can be a challenge as Blender is known for its complex interface, and animation is not an easy subject to begin with.! If you want to get into 3D animation but don't know where to begin, Realizing 3D Animation in Blender will help you overcome these challenges by taking a practical approach to demystifying both the theories of 3D animation and the many animation workflows specific to Blender. With detailed explanations of exercises and a sharp focus on the animation process, this book will help you learn everything you need to set out on your path to becoming a 3D animator. It's much more than just an introduction. The book covers complex concepts in an easy-to-follow manner, and shows you how to avoid common errors that novice animators are prone to making. By the end of this Blender 3D animation book, you'll have gained the knowledge, experience, and inspiration to start creating impressive 3D animations on your own. What you will learn * Become well-versed with the simple rules of keyframing and interpolation * Understand the function and behavior of Blender's animation curves * Set up object relationships * Pose an advanced character rig * Bring a character to life with Blender 3D character animation * Explore advanced features such as physics simulation * Get to grips with Blender's mysterious non-linear animation tool * Render animations the professional way Who This Book Is For This book guides you in working with Blender's latest animation tools from the ground up. If you have a background in art or animation in other software, this book will help you transition to Blender. You'll find this book useful even if you are new to 3D art. No prior art skills or experience with Blender are necessary to get started.