Computer simulation is an effective and popular universal tool that can be applied to almost all disciplines. Requiring only basic knowledge of programming, mathematics, and probability theory, Computer Simulation: A Foundational Approach Using Python takes a hands-on approach to programming to introduce the fundamentals of computer simulation. The main target of the book is computer science and engineering students who are interested mainly in directly applying the techniques to their research problems. The book will be of great interest to senior undergraduate and starting graduate students in the fields of computer science and engineering and industrial engineering.

From the Foreword: "While large-scale machine learning and data mining have greatly impacted a range of commercial applications, their use in the field of Earth sciences is still in the early stages. This book, edited by Ashok Srivastava, Ramakrishna Nemani, and Karsten Steinhaeuser, serves as an outstanding resource for anyone interested in the opportunities and challenges for the machine learning community in analyzing these data sets to answer questions of urgent societal interest...I hope that this book will inspire more computer scientists to focus on environmental applications, and Earth scientists to seek collaborations with researchers in machine learning and data mining to advance the frontiers in Earth sciences." --Vipin Kumar, University of Minnesota Large-Scale Machine Learning in the Earth Sciences provides researchers and practitioners with a broad overview of some of the key challenges in the intersection of Earth science, computer science, statistics, and related fields. It explores a wide range of topics and provides a compilation of recent research in the application of machine learning in the field of Earth Science. Making predictions based on observational data is a theme of the book, and the book includes chapters on the use of network science to understand and discover teleconnections in extreme climate and weather events, as well as using structured estimation in high dimensions. The use of ensemble machine learning models to combine predictions of global climate models using information from spatial and temporal patterns is also explored. The second part of the book features a discussion on statistical downscaling in climate with state-of-the-art scalable machine learning, as well as an overview of methods to understand and predict the proliferation of biological species due to changes in environmental conditions. The problem of using large-scale machine learning to study the formation of tornadoes is also explored in depth. The last part of the book covers the use of deep learning algorithms to classify images that have very high resolution, as well as the unmixing of spectral signals in remote sensing images of land cover. The authors also apply long-tail distributions to geoscience resources, in the final chapter of the book.

Nature-Inspired Computing: Physics and Chemistry-Based Algorithms provides a comprehensive introduction to the methodologies and algorithms in nature-inspired computing, with an emphasis on applications to real-life engineering problems. The research interest for Nature-inspired Computing has grown considerably exploring different phenomena observed in nature and basic principles of physics, chemistry, and biology. The discipline has reached a mature stage and the field has been well-established. This endeavour is another attempt at investigation into various computational schemes inspired from nature, which are presented in this book with the development of a suitable framework and industrial applications. Designed for senior undergraduates, postgraduates, research students, and professionals, the book is written at a comprehensible level for students who have some basic knowledge of calculus and differential equations, and some exposure to optimization theory. Due to the focus on search and optimization, the book is also appropriate for electrical, control, civil, industrial and manufacturing engineering, business, and economics students, as well as those in computer and information sciences. With the mathematical and programming references and applications in each chapter, the book is self-contained, and can also serve as a reference for researchers and scientists in the fields of system science, natural computing, and optimization.

New Literacies and Teacher Learning examines the complexities of teacher professional development today in relation to new literacies and digital technologies, set within the wider context of strong demands for teachers to be innovative and to improve students' learning outcomes. Contributors hail from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Finland, Mexico, Norway, and the U.S., and work in a broad range of situations, grade levels, activities, scales, and even national contexts. Projects include early year education through to adult literacy education and university contexts, describing a range of approaches to taking up new literacies and digital technologies within diverse learning practices. While the authors present detailed descriptions of using various digital resources like movie editing software, wikis, video conferencing, Twitter, and YouTube, they all agree that digital "stuff" - while important - is not the central concern. Instead, what they foreground in their discussions are theory-informed pedagogical orientations, collaborative learning theories, the complexities of teachers' workplaces, and young people's interests. Thus, a key premise in this collection is that teaching and learning are about deep engagement, representing meanings in a range of ways. These include acknowledging relationships and knowledge; thinking critically about events, phenomena, and processes; and participating in valued social and cultural activities. The book shows how this kind of learning doesn't simply occur in a one-off session, but takes time, commitment, and multiple opportunities to interact with others, to explore, play, make mistakes, and get it right.

Image Processing and Acquisition using Python provides readers with a sound foundation in both image acquisition and image processing-one of the first books to integrate these topics together. By improving readers' knowledge of image acquisition techniques and corresponding image processing, the book will help them perform experiments more effectively and cost efficiently as well as analyze and measure more accurately. Long recognized as one of the easiest languages for non-programmers to learn, Python is used in a variety of practical examples. A refresher for more experienced readers, the first part of the book presents an introduction to Python, Python modules, reading and writing images using Python, and an introduction to images. The second part discusses the basics of image processing, including pre/post processing using filters, segmentation, morphological operations, and measurements. The second part describes image acquisition using various modalities, such as x-ray, CT, MRI, light microscopy, and electron microscopy. These modalities encompass most of the common image acquisition methods currently used by researchers in academia and industry. Features Covers both the physical methods of obtaining images and the analytical processing methods required to understand the science behind the images. Contains many examples, detailed derivations, and working Python examples of the techniques. Offers practical tips on image acquisition and processing. Includes numerous exercises to test the reader's skills in Python programming and image processing, with solutions to selected problems, example programs, and images available on the book's web page. New to this edition Machine learning has become an indispensable part of image processing and computer vision, so in this new edition two new chapters are included: one on neural networks and the other on convolutional neural networks. A new chapter on affine transform and many new algorithms. Updated Python code aligned to the latest version of modules.

This book teaches anyone with a basic understanding of Java how to develop Android apps at a professional level. To start, it shows how to use the Eclipse IDE to code, test, and debug a Tip Calculator app for a smartphone or tablet. Then, it expands upon this app to show must-have Android skills such as working with layouts, widgets, events, themes, styles, menus, preferences, and fragments. Next, this book presents two more apps that illustrate Android skills you'll use every day, such as working with threads, files, adapters, intents, services, notifications, broadcast receivers, SQLite databases, content providers, and app widgets. Finally, this book presents an app that uses the Google Maps API and shows you how to submit your finished apps to the Google Play store. The real-world apps let you see how the skills you're learning work together, and they illustrate how and when you'd use each skill. And all the content is presented in Murach distinctive "paired-pages" style that developers find so clear and time-saving for both training and reference.

The systems engineering method proposed in this book, which is based on Abstract State Machines (ASMs), guides the development of software and embedded hardware-software systems seamlessly from requirements capture to actual implementation and documentation. The method bridges the gap between the human understanding and formulation of real-world problems and the deployment of their algorithmic solutions by code-executing machines. Within a single conceptual framework it covers design, verification by reasoning techniques, and validation by simulation and testing. ASMs improve current industrial practice by using accurate high-level modeling and by linking the descriptions at the successive stages of system development in an organic and efficiently maintainable chain of rigorous and coherent system models at stepwise-refined abstraction levels. In several industrial projects the ASM method has proven its superiority compared to the popular UML methodology when designing complex parallel or dynamic systems. This book combines the features of a textbook and a handbook: the reader will find detailed explanations, proofs, and exercises as well as numerous examples and real-world case studies. Researchers will find here the most comprehensive description of ASMs available today and professionals will use it as a "modeling handbook for the working software engineer." As a textbook it supports self-study or it can form the basis of a lecture course. The book is complemented by a CD containing the whole book text, additional course material, solutions to exercises, and additional examples. Even more information can be found on the related website maintained by the authors: http://www.di.unipi.it/AsmBook/

For courses in computer programming and engineering. Beginner to Intermediate Programming in Java This book is designed to serve as a textbook and reference for programming in the Java language. Although it does include programming techniques, it is organised around the features of the Java language rather than any particular curriculum of programming techniques. The main audience is undergraduate students who have not had extensive programming experience with the Java language. The introductory chapters are written at a level that is accessible to beginners, while the boxed sections of those chapters serve to quickly introduce more experienced programmers to basic Java syntax. Later chapters are still designed to be accessible, but are written at a level suitable for students who have progressed to these more advanced topics.

With its unique focus on video game engines, the data-driven architectures of game development and play, this innovative textbook examines the impact of software on everyday life and explores the rise of engine-driven culture. Through a series of case studies, Eric Freedman lays out a clear methodology for studying the game development pipeline, and uses the video game engine as a pathway for media scholars and practitioners to navigate the complex terrain of software practice. Examining several distinct software ecosystems that include the proprietary efforts of Amazon, Apple, Capcom, Epic Games and Unity Technologies, and the unique ways that game engines are used in non-game industries, Freedman illustrates why engines matter. The studies bind together designers and players, speak to the labors of the game industry, value the work of both global and regional developers, and establish critical connection points between software and society. Freedman has crafted a much-needed entry point for students new to code, and a research resource for scholars and teachers working in media industries, game development and new media.

Discover all the amazing things you can do with Arduino

Arduino is a programmable circuit board that is being used by everyone from scientists, programmers, and hardware hackers to artists, designers, hobbyists, and engineers in order to add interactivity to objects and projects and experiment with programming and electronics. This easy-to-understand book is an ideal place to start if you are interested in learning more about Arduino's vast capabilities. Featuring an array of cool projects, this Arduino beginner guide walks you through every step of each of the featured projects so that you can acquire a clear understanding of the different aspects of the Arduino board.Introduces Arduino basics to provide you with a solid foundation of understanding before you tackle your first projectFeatures a variety of fun projects that show you how to do everything from automating your garden's watering system to constructing a keypad entry system, installing a tweeting cat flap, building a robot car, and much moreProvides an easy, hands-on approach to learning more about electronics, programming, and interaction design for Makers of all ages

"Arduino Projects For Dummies" is your guide to turning everyday electronics and plain old projects into incredible innovations.Get Connected To find out more about Brock Craft and his recent Arduino creations, visit www.facebook.com/ArduinoProjectsForDummies

Nowadays, Web applications are almost omnipresent. The Web has become a platform not only for information delivery, but also for eCommerce systems, social networks, mobile services, and distributed learning environments. Engineering Web applications involves many intrinsic challenges due to their distributed nature, content orientation, and the requirement to make them available to a wide spectrum of users who are unknown in advance. The authors discuss these challenges in the context of well-established engineering processes, covering the whole product lifecycle from requirements engineering through design and implementation to deployment and maintenance. They stress the importance of models in Web application development, and they compare well-known Web-specific development processes like WebML, WSDM and OOHDM to traditional software development approaches like the waterfall model and the spiral model. .

Statistical methods are a key tool for all scientists working with data, but learning the basics continues to challenge successive generations of students. This accessible textbook provides an up-to-date introduction to the classical techniques and modern extensions of linear model analysis-one of the most useful approaches for investigating scientific data in the life and environmental sciences. While some of the foundational analyses (e.g. t tests, regression, ANOVA) are as useful now as ever, best practice moves on and there are many new general developments that offer great potential. The book emphasizes an estimation-based approach that takes account of recent criticisms of over-use of probability values and introduces the alternative approach that uses information criteria. This new edition includes the latest advances in R and related software and has been thoroughly "road-tested" over the last decade to create a proven textbook that teaches linear and generalized linear model analysis to students of ecology, evolution, and environmental studies (including worked analyses of data sets relevant to all three disciplines). While R is used throughout, the focus remains firmly on statistical analysis. The New Statistics with R is suitable for senior undergraduate and graduate students, professional researchers, and practitioners in the fields of ecology, evolution and environmental studies.

As technology becomes an ever more prevalent part of everyday life and population-based physical activity programmes seek new ways to increase lifelong engagement with physical activity, so the two have become increasingly linked. This book offers a thorough, critical examination of emerging technologies in physical activity and health, considering technological interventions within the dominant theoretical frameworks, exploring the challenges of integrating technology into physical activity promotion and offering solutions for its implementation. Technology in Physical Activity and Health Promotion occupies a broadly positive stance toward interactive technology initiatives and, while discussing some negative implications of an increased use of technology, offers practical recommendations for promoting physical activity through a range of media, including: social media mobile apps global positioning and geographic information systems wearables active videogames (exergaming) virtual reality settings. Offering a logical and clear critique of technology in physical activity and health promotion, this book will serve as an essential reference for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduate students and scholars working in public health, physical activity and health and kinesiology, and healthcare professionals.

On March 15, 2002 we held a workshop on network interdiction and the more general problem of stochastic mixed integer programming at the University of California, Davis. Jesus De Loera and I co-chaired the event, which included presentations of on-going research and discussion. At the workshop, we decided to produce a volume of timely work on the topics. This volume is the result. Each chapter represents state-of-the-art research and all of them were refereed by leading investigators in the respective fields. Problems - sociated with protecting and attacking computer, transportation, and social networks gain importance as the world becomes more dep- dent on interconnected systems. Optimization models that address the stochastic nature of these problems are an important part of the research agenda. This work relies on recent efforts to provide methods for - dressing stochastic mixed integer programs. The book is organized with interdiction papers first and the stochastic programming papers in the second part. A nice overview of the papers is provided in the Foreward written by Roger Wets."

Most innovations in the car industry are based on software and electronics, and IT will soon constitute the major production cost factor. It seems almost certain that embedded IT security will be crucial for the next generation of applications. Yet whereas software safety has become a relatively well-established field, the protection of automotive IT systems against manipulation or intrusion has only recently started to emerge.

Lemke, Paar, and Wolf collect in this volume a state-of-the-art overview on all aspects relevant for IT security in automotive applications. After an introductory chapter written by the editors themselves, the contributions from experienced experts of different disciplines are structured into three parts. "Security in the Automotive Domain" describes applications for which IT security is crucial, like immobilizers, tachographs, and software updates. "Embedded Security Technologies" details security technologies relevant for automotive applications, e.g., symmetric and asymmetric cryptography, and wireless security. "Business Aspects of IT Systems in Cars" shows the need for embedded security in novel applications like location-based navigation systems and personalization.

The first book in this area of fast-growing economic and scientific importance, it is indispensable for both researchers in software or embedded security and professionals in the automotive industry.

Vim is a fast and efficient text editor that will make you a faster and more efficient developer. It's available on almost every OS, and if you master the techniques in this book, you'll never need another text editor. In more than 120 Vim tips, you'll quickly learn the editor's core functionality and tackle your trickiest editing and writing tasks. This beloved bestseller has been revised and updated to Vim 7.4 and includes two brand-new tips and five fully revised tips.A highly configurable, cross-platform text editor, Vim is a serious tool for programmers, web developers, and sysadmins who want to raise their game. No other text editor comes close to Vim for speed and efficiency; it runs on almost every system imaginable and supports most coding and markup languages.Learn how to edit text the "Vim way": complete a series of repetitive changes with The Dot Formula using one keystroke to strike the target, followed by one keystroke to execute the change. Automate complex tasks by recording your keystrokes as a macro. Discover the "very magic" switch that makes Vim's regular expression syntax more like Perl's. Build complex patterns by iterating on your search history. Search inside multiple files, then run Vim's substitute command on the result set for a project-wide search and replace. All without installing a single plugin! Two new tips explain how to run multiple ex commands as a batch and autocomplete sequences of words."Practical Vim, Second Edition" will show you new ways to work with Vim 7.4 more efficiently, whether you're a beginner or an intermediate Vim user. All this, without having to touch the mouse.What You Need: Vim version 7.4

The ubiquity of computer-generated imagery around us, in movies, advertising or on the Internet is already being taken for granted and what impresses most people is the photorealistic quality of the images. Pictures, as we have often been told, are worth a thousand words and the information transported by an image can take many different forms. Many computer graphics researchers are exploring non-photorealistic rendering techniques as an alternative to realistic rendering. Defined by what it is not, non-photorealistic rendering brings art and science together, concentrating less on the process and more on the communication content of an image. Techniques that have long been used by artists can be applied to computer graphics to emphasize subtle attributes and to omit extraneous information. This book provides an overview of the published research on non-photorealistic rendering in order to categorize and distill the current research into a body of usable techniques. A summary of some of the algorithms as well as pseudo-code for producing some of the images is included.

Outdoor wayfinding and navigation systems and services have become indispensable in people's mobility in unfamiliar environments. Advances in key technologies (e.g., positioning and mobile devices), has spurred interest in research and development of indoor wayfinding and navigation systems and services in recent years. Indoor Wayfinding and Navigation provides both breadth and depth of knowledge in designing and building indoor wayfinding and navigation systems and services. It covers the types of sensors both feasible and practical for localization of users inside buildings. The book discusses current approaches, techniques, and technologies for addressing issues in indoor wayfinding and navigation systems and services. It includes coverage of the cognitive, positioning, mapping, and application perspectives, an unusual but useful combination of information. This mix of different perspectives helps you better understand the issues and challenges of building indoor wayfinding and navigation systems and services, how they are different from those used outdoors, and how they can be used efficiently and effectively in challenging applications. Written by well-known specialists in the field, the book addresses all aspects of indoor wayfinding and navigation. It includes the latest research developments on the topic, succinctly covers the fundamentals, and details the issues and challenges in building new systems and services. With this information, you can design indoor wayfinding and navigation systems and services for a variety of uses and users.

Feminist War Games? explores the critical intersections and collisions between feminist values and perceptions of war, by asking whether feminist values can be asserted as interventional approaches to the design, play, and analysis of games that focus on armed conflict and economies of violence. Focusing on the ways that games, both digital and table-top, can function as narratives, arguments, methods, and instruments of research, the volume demonstrates the impact of computing technologies on our perceptions, ideologies, and actions. Exploring the compatibility between feminist values and systems of war through games is a unique way to pose destabilizing questions, solutions, and approaches; to prototype alternative narratives; and to challenge current idealizations and assumptions. Positing that feminist values can be asserted as a critical method of design, as an ideological design influence, and as a lens that determines how designers and players interact with and within arenas of war, the book addresses the persistence and brutality of war and issues surrounding violence in games, whilst also considering the place and purpose of video games in our cultural moment. Feminist War Games? is a timely volume that questions the often-toxic nature of online and gaming cultures. As such, the book will appeal to a broad variety of disciplinary interests, including sociology, education, psychology, literature, history, politics, game studies, digital humanities, media and cultural studies, and gender studies, as well as those interested in playing, or designing, socially engaged games.

This book provides an overview of concepts and challenges in intis investigated using structural equation modeling. The conveyed understanding of gaming QoE, empirical eraction quality in the domain of cloud gaming services. The author presents a unified evaluation approach by combining quantitative subjective assessment methods in a concise way. The author discusses a measurement tool, Gaming Input Quality Scale (GIPS), that assesses the interaction quality of such a service available. Furthermore, the author discusses a new framework to assess gaming Quality of Experience (QoE) using a crowdsourcing approach. Lastly, based on a large dataset including dominant network and encoding conditions, the evaluation method is investigated using structural equation modeling. The conveyed understanding of gaming QoE, empirical findings, and models presented in this book should be of particular interest to researchers working in the fields of quality and usability engineering, as well as service providers and network operators.

The human face is perhaps the most familiar and easily recognized object in the world, yet both its three-dimensional shape and its two-dimensional images are complex and hard to characterize. This book develops the vocabulary of ridges and parabolic curves, of illumination eigenfaces and elastic warpings for describing the perceptually salient features of a face and its images. The book also explores the underlying mathematics and applies these mathematical techniques to the computer vision problem of face recognition, using both optical and range images.

The author compiles everything a student or experienced developmental engineer needs to know about the supporting technologies associated with the rapidly evolving field of robotics. From the table of contents: Design Considerations * Dead Reckoning * Odometry Sensors * Doppler and Inertial Navigation * Typical Mobility Configurations * Tactile and Proximity Sensing * Triangulation Ranging * Stereo Disparity * Active Triangulation * Active Stereoscopic * Hermies * Structured Light * Known Target Size * Time of Flight * Phase-Shift Measurement * Frequency Modulation * Interferometry * Range from Focus * Return Signal Intensity * Acoustical Energy * Electromagnetic Energy * Optical Energy * Microwave Radar * Collision Avoidance * Guidepath Following * Position-Location Systems * Ultrasonic and Optical Position-Location Systems * Wall, Doorway, andCeiling Referencing * Application-Specific Mission Sensors

This collection of articles provides practical and relevant tools, tips, and techniques for those working in the digital audio field. Volume III, with contributions from experts in their fields, includes articles on a variety of topics, including: - Recording Music - Sound Synthesis - Voice Synthesis - Speech Processing - Applied Signal Processing - HRTF Spatialization - Synchronization - Music Composition - Human Experience Applications of digital audio techniques are indispensable in the recording industry, the film industry, interactive gaming, human computer interaction, and more.

Consider this: Robots will one day be able to write poetry and prose so touching that it will make men weep; compose dozens or even hundreds of symphonies that will rival the work of Mozart; judge a court case with absolute impartiality and fairness; or even converse with the natural ease of your best friend. Robots will one day be so life-like that a human could fall in love and marry one. Thought provoking and controversial? Certainly. Far-fetched? Not at all. David Levy presents the history of Artificial Intelligence, considers recent developments, and speculates about the future of AI. A complete bibliography is available here.

Learn to make games that are more fun and engaging! Building on fundamental principles of Artificial Intelligence, Funge explains how to create Non-Player Characters (NPCs) with progressively more sophisticated capabilities. Starting with the basic capability of acting in the game world, the book explains how to develop NPCs who can perceive, remember what they perceive, and then continue in the game play to think about the effects of possible actions, and finally learn from their experience. Funge considers the system architecture and explains how to implement potential behaviors (both reactive and deliberate) for intelligent and responsive NPCs allowing for games that are more fun and engaging. Emphasizing enduring design principles, Funge covers the basics of Game AI and provides a clear, easy to read introduction that beginning programmers and game designers will enjoy.