The Easy Introduction to Machine Learning (Ml) for Nontechnical People--In Business and Beyond Artificial Intelligence for Business is your plain-English guide to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML): how they work, what they can and cannot do, and how to start profiting from them. Writing for nontechnical executives and professionals, Doug Rose demystifies AI/ML technology with intuitive analogies and explanations honed through years of teaching and consulting. Rose explains everything from early "expert systems" to advanced deep learning networks. First, Rose explains how AI and ML emerged, exploring pivotal early ideas that continue to influence the field. Next, he deepens your understanding of key ML concepts, showing how machines can create strategies and learn from mistakes. Then, Rose introduces current powerful neural networks: systems inspired by the structure and function of the human brain. He concludes by introducing leading AI applications, from automated customer interactions to event prediction. Throughout, Rose stays focused on business: applying these technologies to leverage new opportunities and solve real problems. Compare the ways a machine can learn, and explore current leading ML algorithms Start with the right problems, and avoid common AI/ML project mistakes Use neural networks to automate decision-making and identify unexpected patterns Help neural networks learn more quickly and effectively Harness AI chatbots, virtual assistants, virtual agents, and conversational AI applications

Focuses on the process by which manually crafting interactive, hypertextual maps clarifies one's own understanding, communicates it to others, and enables collective intelligence. The authors see mapping software as visual tools for reading and writing in a networked age. In an information ocean, the challenge is to find meaningful patterns around which we can weave plausible narratives. Maps of concepts, discussions and arguments make the connections between ideas tangible - and critically, disputable. With 22 chapters from leading researchers and practitioners (5 of them new for this edition), the reader will find the current state-of-the-art in the field. Part 1 focuses on knowledge maps for learning and teaching in schools and universities, before Part 2 turns to knowledge maps for information analysis and knowledge management in professional communities, but with many cross-cutting themes: * reflective practitioners documenting the most effective ways to map * conceptual frameworks for evaluating representations * real world case studies showing added value for professionals * more experimental case studies from research and education * visual languages, many of which work on both paper and with software * knowledge cartography software, much of it freely available and open source * visit the companion website for extra resources: books.kmi.open.ac.uk/knowledge-cartography Knowledge Cartography will be of interest to learners, educators, and researchers in all disciplines, as well as policy analysts, scenario planners, knowledge managers and team facilitators. Practitioners will find new perspectives and tools to expand their repertoire, while researchers will find rich enough conceptual grounding for further scholarship.

Many companies have encountered pitfalls in their attempts to successfully implement enterprise resource planning (ERP) that have proven nearly insurmountable, due to lack of techniques and tools for the design and implementation of enterprise information systems (EIS) that are properly aligned with business models and strategic objectives.""Global Implications of Modern Enterprise Information Systems: Technologies and Applications"" presents useful strategies, techniques, and tools for the successful design, development, and implementation of enterprise information systems (EIS). By assimilating the truly international perspective, this collection constructs on this ascending area of research in an array of related fields that will greatly benefit from these cutting-edge findings on modern enterprise information systems.

This thesis proposes a novel Model Predictive Control (MPC) strategy, which modifies the usual MPC cost function in order to achieve a desirable sparse actuation. It features an 1-regularised least squares loss function, in which the control error variance competes with the sum of input channels magnitude (or slew rate) over the whole horizon length. While standard control techniques lead to continuous movements of all actuators, this approach enables a selected subset of actuators to be used, the others being brought into play in exceptional circumstances. The same approach can also be used to obtain asynchronous actuator interventions, so that control actions are only taken in response to large disturbances. This thesis presents a straightforward and systematic approach to achieving these practical properties, which are ignored by mainstream control theory.

This volume is composed of peer-reviewed papers that have developed from the First Conference of the International Society for NonParametric Statistics (ISNPS). This inaugural conference took place in Chalkidiki, Greece, June 15-19, 2012. It was organized with the co-sponsorship of the IMS, the ISI, and other organizations. M.G. Akritas, S.N. Lahiri, and D.N. Politis are the first executive committee members of ISNPS, and the editors of this volume. ISNPS has a distinguished Advisory Committee that includes Professors R.Beran, P.Bickel, R. Carroll, D. Cook, P. Hall, R. Johnson, B. Lindsay, E. Parzen, P. Robinson, M. Rosenblatt, G. Roussas, T. SubbaRao, and G. Wahba. The Charting Committee of ISNPS consists of more than 50 prominent researchers from all over the world. The chapters in this volume bring forth recent advances and trends in several areas of nonparametric statistics. In this way, the volume facilitates the exchange of research ideas, promotes collaboration among researchers from all over the world, and contributes to the further development of the field.The conference program included over 250 talks, including special invited talks, plenary talks, and contributed talks on all areas of nonparametric statistics. Out of these talks, some of the most pertinent ones have been refereed and developed into chapters that share both research and developments in the field.

There are rhythms of action and response to all human-computer interactions. As we click, swipe, tap and sway to their beats, these rhythms intersect with the rhythms of our everyday lives. Perhaps they synchronize, perhaps they disrupt each other or maybe they dance together. Whatever their impact our experience of these rhythms will colour our experience of an interaction design. In playful interactive applications, rhythm is especially crucial because of the role it performs in building and maintaining the precarious spirit of play. Play involves movement and this movement has a rhythm that drives the experience. But what is the character of these rhythms of play and how can they be used in the design of interactive applications? These questions are the focus of this book. Drawing on traditions of rhythmic design practice in dance, performance, music and architecture, this book reveals key insights into practical strategies for designing playful rhythmic experience. With playful experiences now being incorporated into almost every type of computer application, interaction design practitioners and researchers need to develop a deeper understanding of the specific character of rhythms within play. Written from a designer's perspective, with interviews from leading creative artists and interaction design practitioners, Rhythm, Play and Interaction Design will help practitioners, researchers and students understand, evaluate and create rhythmic experiences.

Over the past decade, there has been an increase in attention and focus on the discipline of software engineering. Software engineering tools and techniques have been developed to gain more predictable quality improvement results. Process standards such as Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), ISO 9000, Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination (SPICE), Agile Methodologies, and others have been proposed to assist organizations to achieve more predictable results by incorporating these proven standards and procedures into their software process. Software Process Improvement and Management: Approaches and Tools for Practical Development offers the latest research and case studies on software engineering and development. The production of new process standards assist organizations and software engineers in adding a measure of predictability to the software process. Companies can gain a decisive competitive advantage by applying these new and theoretical methodologies in real-world scenarios. Researchers, scholars, practitioners, students, and anyone interested in the field of software development and design should access this book as a major compendium of the latest research in the field.

"Light and Skin Interactions" immerses you in one of the most fascinating application areas of computer graphics: appearance simulation. The book first illuminates the fundamental biophysical processes that affect skin appearance, and reviews seminal related works aimed at applications in life and health sciences. It then examines four exemplary modeling approaches as well as definitive algorithms that can be used to generate realistic images depicting skin appearance. An accompanying companion site also includes complete code and data sources for the BioSpec model, which is considered to be the most comprehensive first principles model in the field. Despite its wide scope of simulation approaches, the book s content is presented in a concise manner, focusing on relevant practical aspects. What s more, these approaches can be successfully applied to a wide range of additional materials, such as eye tissue, hair, and water.

Allows you to understand and predict the qualitative and quantitative behavior of complex natural systems.A general background on tissue optics clarifies several confusing conceptual issues, saving you valuable time in the early stages of researchIncludes complete code and data sources for the BioSpec model
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This book focuses on the application and development of information geometric methods in the analysis, classification and retrieval of images and signals. It provides introductory chapters to help those new to information geometry and applies the theory to several applications. This area has developed rapidly over recent years, propelled by the major theoretical developments in information geometry, efficient data and image acquisition and the desire to process and interpret large databases of digital information. The book addresses both the transfer of methodology to practitioners involved in database analysis and in its efficient computational implementation.

This book systematically summarizes China Internet development over the past 25 years, highlighting its strong impact on China's economy and society, and discussing the Chinese people's transition from beneficiaries and participants to builders, contributors and joint maintainers of cyberspace development. It describes the development achievements, status and development and trends in China Internet in 2019, systematically summarizes the main lessons learned during development, and analyzes China's strategic planning and policy actions. Further, it discusses topics such as development outcomes, future trends in information infrastructure, network information technology, digital economy, e-government, construction and management of network contents, cyberspace security, the legal construction of cyberspace, and international cyberspace governance. In addition, the book suggests improvements to the index system for China Internet development and offers an overall assessment of cyberspace security and informatization work throughout China in order to comprehensively and accurately demonstrate the level of China Internet development.

This book presents various recently developed and traditional statistical techniques, which are increasingly being applied in social science research. The social sciences cover diverse phenomena arising in society, the economy and the environment, some of which are too complex to allow concrete statements; some cannot be defined by direct observations or measurements; some are culture- (or region-) specific, while others are generic and common. Statistics, being a scientific method - as distinct from a 'science' related to any one type of phenomena - is used to make inductive inferences regarding various phenomena. The book addresses both qualitative and quantitative research (a combination of which is essential in social science research) and offers valuable supplementary reading at an advanced level for researchers.

This book examines current topics and trends in strategic auditing, accounting and finance in digital transformation both from a theoretical and practical perspective. It covers areas such as internal control, corporate governance, enterprise risk management, sustainability and competition. The contributors of this volume emphasize how strategic approaches in this area help companies in achieving targets. The contributions illustrate how by providing good governance, reliable financial reporting, and accountability, businesses can win a competitive advantage. It further discusses how new technological developments like artificial intelligence (AI), cybersystems, network technologies, financial mobility and smart applications, will shape the future of accounting and auditing for firms.

This book provides a general framework for learning sparse graphical models with conditional independence tests. It includes complete treatments for Gaussian, Poisson, multinomial, and mixed data; unified treatments for covariate adjustments, data integration, and network comparison; unified treatments for missing data and heterogeneous data; efficient methods for joint estimation of multiple graphical models; effective methods of high-dimensional variable selection; and effective methods of high-dimensional inference. The methods possess an embarrassingly parallel structure in performing conditional independence tests, and the computation can be significantly accelerated by running in parallel on a multi-core computer or a parallel architecture. This book is intended to serve researchers and scientists interested in high-dimensional statistics, and graduate students in broad data science disciplines. Key Features: A general framework for learning sparse graphical models with conditional independence tests Complete treatments for different types of data, Gaussian, Poisson, multinomial, and mixed data Unified treatments for data integration, network comparison, and covariate adjustment Unified treatments for missing data and heterogeneous data Efficient methods for joint estimation of multiple graphical models Effective methods of high-dimensional variable selection Effective methods of high-dimensional inference

Cut the cable television cord and cut your monthly bills Are you one of those people who have 500 television channels to choose from and you can never find anything to watch? Maybe it's time to cut the cable cord and take full control of what's on your television. All you need to get started with this popular money saving strategy is an Internet connection, a device to stream to, and the advice in this book. With Cord Cutting For Dummies, you go from evaluating if cord cutting is the right choice for your budget to acquiring the technology to get the programming you actually want. You'll discover the technology you need for streaming, select the service or services that fit your needs, and make the components of your setup work together--all within your budget. Cord Cutting For Dummies offers the steps to going from wired to wireless, including: Deciding if you need to upgrade your Wi-Fi equipment and service. Evaluating your current devices. Adding a smart TV to the mix. Choosing the best streaming services for you--including some free options When you're ready to untether yourself from the cable or satellite, Cord Cutting For Dummies shows you, step by step, how to break free. Pick up a copy and you'll be watching your favorite movie or TV show in no time!

This book features papers presented at IIH-MSP 2018, the 14th International Conference on Intelligent Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing. The scope of IIH-MSP included information hiding and security, multimedia signal processing and networking, and bio-inspired multimedia technologies and systems. The book discusses subjects related to massive image/video compression and transmission for emerging networks, advances in speech and language processing, recent advances in information hiding and signal processing for audio and speech signals, intelligent distribution systems and applications, recent advances in security and privacy for multimodal network environments, multimedia signal processing, and machine learning. Presenting the latest research outcomes and findings, it is suitable for researchers and students who are interested in the corresponding fields. IIH-MSP 2018 was held in Sendai, Japan on 26-28 November 2018. It was hosted by Tohoku University and was co-sponsored by the Fujian University of Technology in China, the Taiwan Association for Web Intelligence Consortium in Taiwan, and the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, as well as the Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Big Data Mining and Applications (Fujian University of Technology) and the Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen Graduate School in China.

Successful management of very large IT projects is increasingly becoming vital to corporations worldwide. Driven mainly by the demands of global competition, rapid technological growth, and faster time to market, these projects often result in un-integrated systems, and are thus incapable of supporting coordination to meet organizational goals.""Managing Very Large IT Projects in Businesses and Organizations"" offers a unique perspective on the management and implementation of very large IT projects, discussing sub-project integration, risk management, IT project life cycle, leadership and team building, emerging technologies, corporate strategies, resource management, quality management, quality assurance, and other influencing factors of very large successful IT projects in organizations.

The focus of this book is on three influential cognitive motives: achievement, affiliation, and power motivation. Incentive-based theories of achievement, affiliation and power motivation are the basis for competence-seeking behaviour, relationship-building, leadership, and resource-controlling behaviour in humans. In this book we show how these motives can be modelled and embedded in artificial agents to achieve behavioural diversity. Theoretical issues are addressed for representing and embedding computational models of motivation in rule-based agents, learning agents, crowds and evolution of motivated agents. Practical issues are addressed for defining games, mini-games or in-game scenarios for virtual worlds in which computer-controlled, motivated agents can participate alongside human players. The book is structured into four parts: game playing in virtual worlds by humans and agents; comparing human and artificial motives; game scenarios for motivated agents; and evolution and the future of motivated game-playing agents. It will provide game programmers, and those with an interest in artificial intelligence, with the knowledge required to develop diverse, believable game-playing agents for virtual worlds.

This book examines the emerging problems and opportunities that are posed by media innovations, spatial typologies, and cultural trends in (re)shaping identities within the fast-changing milieus of the early 21st Century. Addressing a range of social and spatial scales and using a phenomenological frame of reference, the book draws on the works of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Don Hide to bridge the seemingly disparate, yet related theoretical perspectives across a number of disciplines. Various perspectives are put forward from media, human geography, cultural studies, technologies, urban design and architecture etc. and looked at thematically from networked culture and digital interface (and other) perspectives. The book probes the ways in which new digital media trends affect how and what we communicate, and how they drive and reshape our everyday practices. This mediatization of space, with fast evolving communication platforms and applications of digital representations, offers challenges to our notions of space, identity and culture and the book explores the diverse yet connected levels of technology and people interaction.

This book explores digital artists articulations of globalization. Digital artworks from around the world are examined in terms of how they both express and simulate globalization s impacts through immersive, participatory and interactive technologies. The author highlights some of the problems with macro and categorical approaches to the study of globalization and presents new ways of seeing the phenomenon as a series of processes and flows that are individually experienced and expressed. Instead of providing a macro analysis of large-scale political and economic processes, the book offers imaginative new ways of knowing and understanding globalization as a series of micro affects. Digital art is explored in terms of how it re-centers articulations of globalization around individual experiences and offers new ways of accessing a complex topic often expressed in general and intangible terms. The Work of Art in a Digital Age: Art, Technology and Globalization is analytic and accessible, with material that is of interest to a range of researchers from different disciplines. Students studying digital art, film, globalization, cultural studies or digital media trends will also find the content fascinating."

Software and systems quality is playing an increasingly important role in the growth of almost all profit and non-profit organisations. Quality is vital to the success of enterprises in their markets. Most small trade and repair businesses use software systems in their administration and marketing processes. Every doctor's surgery is managing its patients using software. Banking is no longer conceivable without software. Aircraft, trucks and cars use more and more software to handle their increasingly complex technical systems. Innovation, competition and cost pressure are always present in on-going business decisions. The question facing all these organisations is how to achieve the right quality of their software-based systems and products; how to get the required level of quality, a level that the market will reward, a level that mitigates the organisation's risks and a level that the organisation is willing to pay for. Although a number of good practices are in place, there is still room for huge improvements. Thus, let us take a look into the two worlds of "Embedded systems" and "ICT systems" and let us learn from both worlds, from overlaps and individual solutions. The next step for industrialisation in the software industry is required now. Hence, three pillars will be focused in this book: (1) a fundamental notion of right software and systems quality (RiSSQ); (2) portfolio management, quality governance, quality management, and quality engineering as holistic approach over the three layers of an enterprise, i.e. strategic, tactical, and operational layer; and (3) an industrialisation framework for implementing our approach.

This book provides specialists and executives with a clear, yet practical set of recommendations to meet the challenges of digital transformation and ensure long-term success as a leader in a primarily digital business world. The authors describe the fundamental principles of digitization and its economic opportunities and risks, integrating them into a framework of classic and new management methods. The book also explores how increasing digitization - not only of communication, but of complete value chains - has led to a need to establish a digital business leadership. Digitization is changing people and markets: it causes the upheaval of entire industries, creates new digital-centric companies, and forces established companies to cope with the transformation activities associated with these digitization processes. New approaches and methods have to be learned, tried and tested patterns of thinking have to be explored, and last but not least, innovation activities have to be understood as continuous necessities. At the same time, digital business offers considerable opportunities for renewing competitive advantages, improving existing process structures and realigning products, services and business models.

Dynamic Business Process Formation fuses practical needs with theoretical input to present important research innovations in supporting Instant Virtual Enterprises (IVEs). This new organization type brings a combination of business dynamism and explicit business process structure to domains where on-the-fly formation of well-organized business networks is required to deal with the complexity of new products or services under high time pressure. This book contains the main results of the IST CrossWork project, and, importantly, looks beyond the boundaries of this project and sources input from related projects and general trends in collaborative enterprises and the automotive industry. Both the business and technical aspects of Virtual Enterprise coordination are covered within the modular structure of the book, which enables readers from different backgrounds to benefit from the book according to their interests.