Digital fiction has long been perceived as an experimental niche of electronic literature. Yet born-digital narratives thrive in mainstream culture, as communities of practice create and share digital fiction, filling in the gaps between the media they are given and the stories they seek. Neverending Stories explores the influences of literature and computing on digital fiction and how the practices and cultures of each have impacted who makes and plays digital fiction. Popular creativity emerges from subordinated groups often excluded from producing cultural resources, accepting the materials of capitalism and inverting them for their own carnivalesque uses. Popular digital fiction goes by many different names: webnovels, adventure games, visual novels, Twitter fiction, webcomics, Twine games, walking sims, alternate reality games, virtual reality films, interactive movies, enhanced books, transmedia universes, and many more. The book establishes digital fiction in a foundation of innovation, tracing its emergence in various guises around the world. It examines Infocom, whose commercial success with interactive fiction crumbled, in no small part, because of its failure to consider women as creators or consumers. It takes note of the brief flourish of commercial book apps and literary games. It connects practices of cognitive and conceptual interactivity, and textual multiplicity-dating to the origins of the print novel-to the feminine. It pushes into the technological future of narrative in immersive and mixed realities. It posits the transmedia franchises and the practices of fanfiction as examples of digital fiction that will continue indefinitely, regardless of academic notice or approval.

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!

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.

This book is intended for practitioners and applied researchers in remote sensing applications and also for graduate students in the field. This reference provides a surface scattering model covering the entire frequency axis instead of only high- or low-frequency models. The text includes extensive model behaviours and case studies and demonstrates the effectiveness of combining the models and neural networks to classify and retrieve terrain and rough surface parameters.

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.

This textbook presents methods and techniques for time series analysis and forecasting and shows how to use Python to implement them and solve data science problems. It covers not only common statistical approaches and time series models, including ARMA, SARIMA, VAR, GARCH and state space and Markov switching models for (non)stationary, multivariate and financial time series, but also modern machine learning procedures and challenges for time series forecasting. Providing an organic combination of the principles of time series analysis and Python programming, it enables the reader to study methods and techniques and practice writing and running Python code at the same time. Its data-driven approach to analyzing and modeling time series data helps new learners to visualize and interpret both the raw data and its computed results. Primarily intended for students of statistics, economics and data science with an undergraduate knowledge of probability and statistics, the book will equally appeal to industry professionals in the fields of artificial intelligence and data science, and anyone interested in using Python to solve time series problems.

"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 media and critical studies approach to the museum and raises questions about the role of privately-owned search engines in facilitating museum experiences. It questions who collects what, for whom objects are collected and what purpose these objects and collections serve. brings attention to an emerging new model of digital ownership and moderation by connecting fieldwork undertaken in Australia and New Zealand with the global practices of technology companies. will be of interest to academics and students working in the fields of museum studies, art, culture, media studies and digital humanities and for practitioners working in museums and galleries around the world.

Intelligent Edge Computing for Cyber Physical Applications introduces state-of-the-art research methodologies, tools and techniques, challenges, and solutions with further research opportunities in the area of edge-based cyber-physical systems. The book presents a comprehensive review of recent literature and analysis of different techniques for building edge-based CPS. In addition, it describes how edge-based CPS can be built to seamlessly interact with physical machines for optimal performance, covering various aspects of edge computing architectures for dynamic resource provisioning, mobile edge computing, energy saving scenarios, and different security issues. Sections feature practical use cases of edge-computing which will help readers understand the workings of edge-based systems in detail, taking into account the need to present intellectual challenges while appealing to a broad readership, including academic researchers, practicing engineers and managers, and graduate students.

This book is an important collection for scholars and students interested in the critical analysis of digital games, and will be of interest across several disciplines including game studies, game design and development, internet studies, visual studies, cultural studies, communication studies, and media studies, as well as disability studies The book explores the opportunities and challenges people with disabilities experience in the context of digital games from the perspective of three related areas: representation, access and inclusion, and community Drawing on key concerns in disability media studies, the book brings together scholars from disability studies and game studies, alongside game developers, educators, and disability rights activists, to reflect upon the increasing visibility of disabled characters in digital games Chapters explore the contemporary gaming environment as it relates to disability on platforms such as Twitch, Minecraft, and Tingyou, while also addressing future possibilities and pitfalls for people with disabilities within gaming given the rise of virtual reality applications, and augmented games such as Pokemon Go The book also asks how game developers can attempt to represent diverse abilities, taking games such as BlindSide and Overwatch as examples

Living with Robots: Emerging Issues on the Psychological and Social Implications of Robotics focuses on the issues that come to bear when humans interact and collaborate with robots. The book dives deeply into critical factors that impact how individuals interact with robots at home, work and play. It includes topics ranging from robot anthropomorphic design, degree of autonomy, trust, individual differences and machine learning. While other books focus on engineering capabilities or the highly conceptual, philosophical issues of human-robot interaction, this resource tackles the human elements at play in these interactions, which are essential if humans and robots are to coexist and collaborate effectively. Authored by key psychology robotics researchers, the book limits its focus to specifically those robots who are intended to interact with people, including technology such as drones, self-driving cars, and humanoid robots. Forward-looking, the book examines robots not as the novelty they used to be, but rather the practical idea of robots participating in our everyday lives.

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.

STAYING THE COURSE AS A CIO: HOW TO OVERCOME THE TRIALS AND CHALLENGES OF IT LEADERSHIP The shelf-life of a Chief Information Officer can be shockingly short. Few survive in post for more than a few years. More often each falls prey to insurmountable problems and their careers come to a sharp and ignominious end. In this book, a global CIO with over thirty years of experience in major corporations examines the main reasons why this happens. Readers will understand which types of issue can cause problems for an IT Leader and more importantly, they will learn strategies of how these problems can be minimized or even avoided. IT is often seen a technical backwater, but it is a discipline which has the capability to add massive value to an organisation whether it is in the private or the public sector provided of course it has the right leadership doing the right things. Aspiring IT Leaders will need to deal with a common set of recurring trials and challenges. These include: * Overcoming the challenge of managing diverse and conflicting stakeholders * How to deal with large and complex projects * Making sense of software and how to handle the rapidly changing technology landscape * Knowing when to outsource and how to get the best out of an outsourcing partner * Harnessing the intellectual power of consultants to help you meet your goals * And last but not least, how to develop a set of strategies that are aligned with your corporate goals and then make sure your resources are properly targetted so that the IT function generates maximum positive impact for the enterprise. For IT professionals looking to fully integrate their function into the enterprise, 'Staying the Course as a CIO is a valuable source of practical advice, all based on real experience.

All games are potentially transformative experiences because they engage the player in dynamic action. When repurposed in an educational context, even highly popular casual games played online to pass the time can engage players in a way that deepens learning. Games as Transformative Experiences for Critical Thinking, Cultural Awareness, and Deep Learning: Strategies & Resources examines the learning value of a wide variety of games across multiple disciplines. Organized just like a well-made game, the book is divided into four parts highlighting classroom experiences, community and culture, virtual learning, and interdisciplinary instruction. The author crosses between the high school and college classroom and addresses a range of disciplines, both online and classroom practice, the design of curriculum, and the transformation of assessment practices. In addition to a wealth of practical exercises, resources, and lesson ideas, the book explains how to use a wide and diverse range of games from casual to massively multiplayer online games for self-improvement as well as classroom situations.

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."

"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.

This book discusses theoretically and empirically the trade-off relationship between the frequency of product adaptation activities and the constraints on development resources, and how companies can respond to these constraints. The objective of this book is to identify effective management practices in continuous product development. With the continuation of development activities, companies are required to constantly adapt their products to changes in the external environment. In continuous product development, the development process extends beyond product release, and interaction with the external environment is not limited to the planning stage but occurs multiple times throughout the process. What impact does the multiple adaptation activities have on the product performance as development activities become more continuous, and how to use limited development resources to provide stable and constant high-quality adaptation activities with optimal frequency have become urgent issues in the development sites. To address these research questions, this book focuses primarily on the development activities of the online game industry. The factors that bring about superior product performance are examined by combining case studies and questionnaire surveys on online game development projects. Furthermore, user community management is also discussed from the perspective of the interaction process between multiple user groups.

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.

The constantly evolving technological infrastructure of the modem world presents a great challenge of developing software systems with increasing size, complexity, and functionality. The software engineering field has seen changes and innovations to meet these and other continuously growing challenges by developing and implementing useful software engineering methodologies. Among the more recent advances are those made in the context of software portability, formal verification. techniques, software measurement, and software reuse. However, despite the introduction of some important and useful paradigms in the software engineering discipline, their technological transfer on a larger scale has been extremely gradual and limited. For example, many software development organizations may not have a well-defined software assurance team, which can be considered as a key ingredient in the development of a high-quality and dependable software product. Recently, the software engineering field has observed an increased integration or fusion with the computational intelligence (Cl) field, which is comprised of primarily the mature technologies of fuzzy logic, neural networks, genetic algorithms, genetic programming, and rough sets. Hybrid systems that combine two or more of these individual technologies are also categorized under the Cl umbrella. Software engineering is unlike the other well-founded engineering disciplines, primarily due to its human component (designers, developers, testers, etc. ) factor. The highly non-mechanical and intuitive nature of the human factor characterizes many of the problems associated with software engineering, including those observed in development effort estimation, software quality and reliability prediction, software design, and software testing."