Game design is a sibling discipline to software and Web design, but they're siblings that grew up in different houses. They have much more in common than their perceived distinction typically suggests, and user experience practitioners can realize enormous benefit by exploiting the solutions that games have found to the real problems of design. This book will show you how.

"Examines classic algorithms, geometric diagrams, and mechanical principles for enhances visualization of statistical estimation procedures and mathematical concepts in physics, engineering, and computer programming."

This book takes an in-depth look at consumer behavior in the context of multichannel commerce and explores how the convergence of physical and electronic channels influences consumer decision-making in a multichannel environment. In this regard, it goes far beyond explaining choices between online and offline sales channels, instead providing insights into how the interplay between different channel types is valued by different consumer types and for different products. The book extends previous conceptualizations of multichannel commerce to reflect and incorporate recent technological advances. The results provide valuable guidelines on how, why and when multichannel integration services can be exploited by classical retailers, helping them to compete with their purely online competitors on the internet.

This book will provide a comprehensive guide to creating and managing a game jam. The book will also provide an overview of how and where game jams have been held, the type of game jams, the tools and technologies used in organising and participating in game jams.

In this thesis, novel Monte Carlo methods for precisely calculating the critical phenomena of the effectively frustrated quantum spin system are developed and applied to the critical phenomena of the spin-Peierls systems. Three significant methods are introduced for the first time: a new optimization algorithm of the Markov chain transition kernel based on the geometric weight-allocation approach, the extension of the worm (directed-loop) algorithm to nonconserved particles, and the combination with the level spectroscopy. Utilizing these methods, the phase diagram of the one-dimensional XXZ spin-Peierls system is elucidated. Furthermore, the multi-chain and two-dimensional spin-Peierls systems with interchain lattice interaction are investigated. The unbiased simulation shows that the interesting quantum phase transition between the 1D-like liquid phase and the macroscopically-degenerated dimer phase occurs on the fully-frustrated parameter line that separates the doubly-degenerated dimer phases in the two-dimensional phase diagram. The spin-phonon interaction in the spin-Peierls system introduces the spin frustration, which usually hinders the quantum Monte Carlo analysis, owing to the notorious negative sign problem. In this thesis, the author has succeeded in precisely calculating the critical phenomena of the effectively frustrated quantum spin system by means of the quantum Monte Carlo method without the negative sign.

Real Application Clusters (RAC) and the Grid architecture are Oracle's strategy for scaling out enterprise systems to cope with bigger workloads and more users. Many books limit themselves by conceptualizing and theorizing about RAC technology, but this book is the first to portray implementing and administering an Oracle 10"g" RAC system in a Linux environment. This book features basic concepts underlying Linux and Oracle RAC, design strategies, hardware procurement and configuration, and many other topics.

The RAC-specific technologies described include configuration of the interconnect, OCFS, ASM, Cluster Ready Services, and Grid Control. The Oracle features RMAN and Data Guard are also discussed, along with available hardware options. The authors include practical examples and configuration information, so that upon reading this book, youll be armed with the information you need to build an Oracle RAC database on Linux, whether it is on a single laptop or a 64-node Itanium cluster.

Whether you're a computer rookie or hot shot, you can master Microsoft (R) Office 2016 applications quickly with ILLUSTRATED MICROSOFT (R) OFFICE 2016 & OFFICE 365 INTRODUCTORY, part of the popular Illustrated Series. Using a focused, user-friendly format, a two-page layout allows you to work through an entire task without turning the page. The book's easy to follow presentation highlights Learning Outcomes that outline the skills in each lesson. Larger full-color screen images reflect exactly what you should see on your own computer. Each module begins with a brief overview of the principles of the lesson and introduces a case study for further application. New Productivity Apps visually introduce Microsoft (R) OneNote, Sway, Office Mix and Edge using fun, hands-on activities. Companion Sways provide videos and step-by-step instructions to help you master each app. In addition, MindTap and SAM help you further focus your study for results now and success later on the job.

Focused on practical matters: this book will not cover Shiny concepts, but practical tools and methodologies to use for production. Based on experience: this book will be a formalization of several years of experience building Shiny applications. Original content: this book will present new methodology and tooling, not just do a review of what already exists.

Become a stats superstar by using Excel to reveal the powerful secrets of statistics.

Microsoft Excel offers numerous possibilities for statistical analysis―and you don’t have to be a math wizard to unlock them. In Statistical Analysis with Excel For Dummies, fully updated for the 2021 version of Excel, you’ll hit the ground running with straightforward techniques and practical guidance to unlock the power of statistics in Excel.

Bypass unnecessary jargon and skip right to mastering formulas, functions, charts, probabilities, distributions, and correlations. Written for professionals and students without a background in statistics or math, you’ll learn to create, interpret, and translate statistics―and have fun doing it!

In this book you’ll find out how to:

• Understand, describe, and summarize any kind of data, from sports stats to sales figures
• Confidently draw conclusions from your analyses, make accurate predictions, and calculate correlations
• Model the probabilities of future outcomes based on past data
• Perform statistical analysis on any platform: Windows, Mac, or iPad
• Access additional resources and practice templates through Dummies.com

For anyone who’s ever wanted to unleash the full potential of statistical analysis in Excel―and impress your colleagues or classmates along the way―Statistical Analysis with Excel For Dummies walks you through the foundational concepts of analyzing statistics and the step-by-step methods you use to apply them.

This book is a theoretical and practical deep dive into the craft of worldbuilding for video games, with an explicit focus on how different job disciplines contribute to worldbuilding. In addition to providing lenses for recognizing the various components in creating fictional and digital worlds, the author positions worldbuilding as a reciprocal and dynamic process, a process which acknowledges that worldbuilding is both created by and instrumental in the design of narrative, gameplay, art, audio, and more. Collaborative Worldbuilding for Video Games encourages mutual respect and collaboration among teams and provides game writers and narrative designers tools for effectively incorporating other job roles into their own worldbuilding practice and vice versa. Features: Provides in-depth exploration of worldbuilding via respective job disciplines Deep dives and case studies into a variety of games, both AAA and indie Includes boxed articles for deeper interrogation and exploration of key ideas Contains templates and checklists for practical tips on worldbuilding

It demonstrates how features such as animation and audio can be employed to ensure web sites are used to their full potential and therefore helps to create professional products that will secure a positive image of the company or product they are promoting. It is accessible and simplifies the authoring experience so that even those with little or no previous knowledge of creating web pages can develop and innovate stimulating and interactive features to enhance their content.

If you are a typical Oracle professional, you don't have the luxury of time to keep up with new technology and read all the new manuals to understand each new feature of the latest release from Oracle. You need a comprehensive source of information and in-depth tips and techniques for using the new technology. You need Oracle Internals: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques for DBAs.
Oracle has evolved from a simple relational database into one of the most complex e-commerce platforms ever devised. It's not enough for you to understand just the Oracle database. You must also understand the components of the Web server technology, XML, Oracle Security, Oracle and Java, and a host of other issues in order to do your job properly.
This book is a compendium of the best and most useful articles form Oracle Internals, Auerbach Publications' newsletter for Oracle database administrators and other Oracle professionals. Edited by Oracle guru Don Burleson, it provides the type of in-depth, highly technical information not found in any other book, information only available from peers and consultants. The chapters focus on the truly tough stuff - proven techniques learned in the trenches.
You could get this information from other sources, but you'd have to hunt and peck for it. Can you afford that kind of time? Oracle Internals: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques for DBAs gives you knowledge and advice directly applicable to your work in one easy-to-use resource.

'The Project Manager's Toolkit' provides a quick reference checklist approach to drive an IT development project as well as solve issues that arise in the process. It can be used proactively to set a project on the right course and reactively for solutions to problems. It will: * help identify what needs doing next on an IT project * provide quick reference 'to-do' lists for use throughout the lifecycle of an IT project * answer the need for material that can be used to quality-check project deliverables It has been designed so that those on the project team who are facing a problem can pick up the book, turn to a relevant checklist and use it as a "starter-for-ten" to find a solution. For example, how to analyse data for a data-conversion exercise, or how to measure the quality of a project deliverable. 'The Project Manager's Toolkit' therefore provides a fast way to reduce an insolvable problem/issue to a set of smaller solvable ones

ITIL(R) 4 Create, Deliver and SupportIf you've achieved your ITIL(R) 4 Foundation certificate, you're probably planning the next stage in your ITIL journey and which qualification to work towards. ITIL 4 Create, Deliver and Support (CDS) provides essential knowledge and capabilities for service management professionals, focusing on a value stream based approach to IT-enabled products and services - a must-have skillset practitioners should seek beyond Foundation level. The majority of this book is based on the official AXELOS ITIL(R) 4: Create, Deliver and Support publication and the associated Create, Deliver and Support Managing Professional syllabus. It provides students with the information they need to pass the Create, Deliver and Support exam, and help them become a successful practitioner. Suitable for existing ITIL v3 experts, ITIL 4 Managing Professional (MP) students, ITSM (IT service management) practitioners who are adopting ITIL 4, approved training organisations, IT service managers, IT managers and those in IT support roles. The guide focuses on: Service value system key concepts and challenges; Using a shift-left approach; Planning and managing resources in the service value system; The use and value of technology across the service value system; ITIL practices and value streams for new services and user support; How to create, deliver and support services; and Exam preparation. A useful tool throughout your careerIn addition to being an essential study aid, the author - a seasoned ITSM professional - also provides additional guidance throughout the book which you can lean on once your training and exam are over. The book includes her own practical experience from which she gives advice and points to think about along the way so that you can refer back to this book for years to come - long after you've passed your exam. The essential link between your ITIL qualification and the real world - buy this book today!

This book is based on a number of systems concepts, of which the following are emphasized here: oThe interacting systems of society and the environment are dynamic and evolution ary oEvolution of these systems carries them through stages of differential stability and instability, continuity and discontinuity oAssociated with evolution and instability is structural change that is essentially irre versible oThe present is a stage of world transformation that may not have been equaled for decades or even centuries oPolicies and decisions must match the times, in the present case the stage of world transformation The time 11:59:59 PM, approximately, on December 31, 2000 has an impor tant symbolic meaning. It marks the end of a minute, the end of an hour, the end of a day, the end of a year, the end of a decade, the end of a century, and the end of a millennium. The time and date provide a convenient yardstick against which we can evaluate the evolution of our thinking and the adequacy of our assumptions, mental models, paradigms, and policies. Will the beginning tum out to be appropriately dif ferent from the end? We hope that this book is helpful in such evaluation. This is a new-paradigm book, which both presents and advances the new way of thinking about the systems of science, technology, society, economics, politics, and the environment, and actively calls for the replacement of the worn out cognitive/sociotechnical paradigm."

Within the field of game design, game balance can best be described as a black art. It is the process by which game designers make a game simultaneously fair for players while providing them just the right amount of difficulty to be both exciting and challenging without making the game entirely predictable. This involves a combination of mathematics, psychology, and occasionally other fields such as economics and game theory. Game Balance offers readers a dynamic look into game design and player theory. Throughout the book, relevant topics on the use of spreadsheet programs will be included in each chapter. This book therefore doubles as a useful reference on Microsoft Excel, Google Spreadsheets, and other spreadsheet programs and their uses for game designers. FEATURES The first and only book to explore game balance as a topic in depth Topics range from intermediate to advanced, while written in an accessible style that demystifies even the most challenging mathematical concepts to the point where a novice student of game design can understand and apply them Contains powerful spreadsheet techniques which have been tested with all major spreadsheet programs and battle-tested with real-world game design tasks Provides short-form exercises at the end of each chapter to allow for practice of the techniques discussed therein along with three long-term projects divided into parts throughout the book that involve their creation Written by award-winning designers with decades of experience in the field Ian Schreiber has been in the industry since 2000, first as a programmer and then as a game designer. He has worked on eight published game titles, training/simulation games for three Fortune 500 companies, and has advised countless student projects. He is the co-founder of Global Game Jam, the largest in-person game jam event in the world. Ian has taught game design and development courses at a variety of colleges and universities since 2006. Brenda Romero is a BAFTA award-winning game director, entrepreneur, artist, and Fulbright award recipient and is presently game director and creator of the Empire of Sin franchise. As a game director, she has worked on 50 games and contributed to many seminal titles, including the Wizardry and Jagged Alliance series and titles in the Ghost Recon, Dungeons & Dragons, and Def Jam franchises.

ITIL(R) 4 High-velocity ITIf you've achieved your ITIL(R) 4 Foundation certificate, you're probably planning the next stage in your ITIL journey and which qualification to work towards. ITIL 4 High-velocity IT (HVIT) provides essential knowledge and capabilities for service management professionals, supporting those involved in the delivery of digital products and services and anyone working on digital transformation programs. High-velocity IT is one of the ITIL 4 advanced level modules that leads to the MP (Managing Professional) certification. The module is aimed at professionals who are working in fast-paced environments, including adapting service management to work with Lean, Agile and DevOps. The majority of this book is based on the official AXELOS ITIL(R) 4: High-velocity IT publication and the associated High-velocity IT Managing Professional syllabus. It provides students with the information they need to pass the High-velocity IT exam, and help them become a successful practitioner. Suitable for existing ITIL v3 experts, ITIL 4 MP students, ITSM (IT service management) practitioners who are adopting ITIL 4, approved training organisations, IT service managers, IT managers and those in IT support roles. The guide focuses on: Digital product lifecycle and the ITIL operating model; High-velocity key behaviours; Principles, models and concepts; Ensuring: valuable investments, fast development, resilient operations and assured conformance; and Exam preparation. A useful tool throughout your careerIn addition to being an essential study aid, the author - a seasoned ITSM professional - also provides additional guidance throughout the book which you can lean on once your training and exam are over. The book includes her own practical experience from which she gives advice and points to think about along the way so that you can refer back to this book for years to come - long after you've passed your exam. The essential link between your ITIL qualification and the real world - buy this book today!

"Fundamentals of Wearable Computers and Augmented Reality" presents a broad coverage of the technologies and interface design issues associated with wearable computers and augmented reality displays both rapidly developing fields in computer science, engineering, and human interface design. This book presents concepts related to the use and underlying technologies of augmented reality and wearable computer systems. There are many application areas for this technology, such as medicine, manufacturing, training, and recreation. Wearable computers will allow a much closer association of information with the user than is possible with traditional desktop computers.
This book addresses an important aspect of wearable computers and augmented reality, either from the conceptual or from an application framework. Given the wide coverage of topics on issues related to the display of computer-generated images in the environment, this book can be used as a text for computer science, computer engineering, and interface design courses.

Many types of engineering structures exhibit nonlinear behavior under real operating conditions. Sometimes the unpredicted nonlinear behavior of a system results in catastrophic failure. In civil engineering, grandstands at sporting events and concerts may be prone to nonlinear oscillations due to looseness of joints, friction, and crowd movements. In the aerospace industry, nonlinear motions may have serious implications for fatigue life. In the automotive industry, examples include brake sequel and undesirable engine mounting oscillations. Engineers of all types encounter nonlinear behavior in a system at some time in their working lives and should be able to recognize it.
Nonlinearity in Structural Dynamics: Detection, Identification and Modeling provides a background in techniques that can be applied to situations in which nonlinearity plays, or is suspected to play, a role in the dynamic structural behavior. Striking a good balance between theory and application, the book covers both analytical and experimental methods and describes their application to real structures. The authors include numerous examples of nonlinearity in real engineering systems. The book is essential reading for engineers and scientists in the fields of structural dynamics and nonlinearity as well as a useful supplement for graduate and senior undergraduate students in engineering courses.

A clear, comprehensive treatment of the subject, Environmental Statistics with S-PLUS is an ideal resource for environmental scientists, engineers, regulators, and students, even those with only a limited knowledge of statistics. It provides insight into what to think about before you collect environmental data, how to collect it, and how to make sense of it after you have it. This book addresses the vast array of methods used today by scientists, researchers, and regulators.

Through its convenient showcase of information and numerous data sets posted on the Web, Environmental Statistics with S-PLUS shows you how to implement these methods using the statistical software package S-PLUS and the add-in modules EnvironmentalStats for S-PLUS, S+SpatialStats, and S-PLUS for ArcView. This survey of statistical methods, definitions, and concepts helps you collect and effectively analyze data for environmental pollution problems.

Microsoft's Works 2000 suite replaces Works 4.0 and the minor upgrade 4.5. The suite contains word processing, spreadsheet and database software, plus an address book, calendar and a range of templates and wizards to give users a start on many types of documents. This is an introduction to Works 2000 for new users, with the assumption that the new Works user probably has little prior experience of computers. It starts with the basics of screen control and file management, then looks at each of the main components in turn. The focus is on what is being processed - text, numbers - rather than the application being used, as the same techniques recur in different applications.