As games grow more complex and gamers' expectations soar, the discipline of game systems design becomes ever more important. Game systems designers plan a game's rules and balance, its characters' attributes, most of its data, and how its AI, weapons, and objects work and interact. Introduction to Game Systems Design is the first complete beginner's guide to this crucial discipline. Writing for all aspiring game professionals, even those with absolutely no experience, leading game designer and instructor Dax Gazaway presents a step-by-step, hands-on approach to designing game systems with industry-standard tools. Drawing on his experience building AAA-level game systems (including games in the Star Wars and Marvel franchises), Gazaway covers all this, and more: Exploring the essentials of game design and its emerging subdisciplines Asking the essential questions at the heart of all design Getting started with modern game system design tools, including the spreadsheets most professionals now use Creating systems and data from a blank page Populating and quantifying a world of data into a game Tuning and balancing game systems Testing game systems and data Leveraging communication, psychology, and rewards within your games Balancing game probability within systems Whether you're a college freshman entering a game design program, an indie developer using Unreal or Unity, a Dungeon Master, or anyone who wants to really understand modern games, this guide will help you get where you want to go.

Implementing physical simulations for real-time games is a complex task that requires a solid understanding of a wide range of concepts from the fields of mathematics, physics, and software engineering. This book is a gems-like collection of practical articles in the area of game physics. Each provides hands-on detail that can be used in practical applications.

The chapters cover topics such as collision detection, particle-based simulations, constraint solving, and soft-body simulation. An introductory section provides the mathematical foundations and offers some background for the problems inherent in successful physics simulation. The contributors write based on their experience in developing tools and runtime libraries either in game companies or middleware houses that produce physics software for games on PCs and consoles.

Get up to speed on the nuances of NoSQL databases and what they mean for your organization This easy to read guide to NoSQL databases provides the type of no-nonsense overview and analysis that you need to learn, including what NoSQL is and which database is right for you. Featuring specific evaluation criteria for NoSQL databases, along with a look into the pros and cons of the most popular options, NoSQL For Dummies provides the fastest and easiest way to dive into the details of this incredible technology. You'll gain an understanding of how to use NoSQL databases for mission-critical enterprise architectures and projects, and real-world examples reinforce the primary points to create an action-oriented resource for IT pros. If you're planning a big data project or platform, you probably already know you need to select a NoSQL database to complete your architecture. But with options flooding the market and updates and add-ons coming at a rapid pace, determining what you require now, and in the future, can be a tall task. This is where NoSQL For Dummies comes in! * Learn the basic tenets of NoSQL databases and why they have come to the forefront as data has outpaced the capabilities of relational databases * Discover major players among NoSQL databases, including Cassandra, MongoDB, MarkLogic, Neo4J, and others * Get an in-depth look at the benefits and disadvantages of the wide variety of NoSQL database options * Explore the needs of your organization as they relate to the capabilities of specific NoSQL databases Big data and Hadoop get all the attention, but when it comes down to it, NoSQL databases are the engines that power many big data analytics initiatives. With NoSQL For Dummies, you'll go beyond relational databases to ramp up your enterprise's data architecture in no time.

The author takes readers on an in-depth walkthrough of the Torque Game Engine---one of the most popular, powerful, and easy to use game engines available today. With clear explanations of how to use Torque to create your own games and detailed discussions of the engine's inner workings, this book is a must read for any programmer interested in making games for fun or profit. It offers step-by-step examples, detailed system descriptions, in-depth references, practical tips, tricks, and more that provide readers all they need to understand the Torque Game Engine. See the Support page on the author's website for a revision of Chapter 15 (Torque Lighting). Downloadable resources are included with the book.

"Social Semantics: The Search for Meaning on the Web"provides a unique introduction to identity and reference theories of the World Wide Web, through the academic lens of philosophy of language and data-driven statistical models. The Semantic Web is a natural evolution of the Web, and this book covers the URL-based Web architecture and Semantic Web in detail. It has a robust empirical side which has an impact on industry.

"Social Semantics: The Search for Meaning on the Web" discusses how the largest problem facing the Semantic Web is the problem of identity and reference, and how these are the results of a larger general theory of meaning. This book hypothesizes that statistical semantics can solve these problems, illustrated by case studies ranging from a pioneering study of tagging systems to using the Semantic Web to boost the results of commercial search engines. " "

"Social Semantics: The Search for Meaning on the Web"targets practitioners working in the related fields of the semantic web, search engines, information retrieval, philosophers of language and more. Advanced-level students and researchers focusing on computer science will also find this book valuable as a secondary text or reference book."

This book offers the reader a comprehensive view of the design space of wearable computers, cutting across multiple application domains and interaction modalities. Besides providing several examples of wearable technologies, Wearable Interaction illustrates how to create and to assess interactive wearables considering human factors in design decisions related to input entry and output responses. The book also discusses the impacts of form factors and contexts of use in the design of wearable interaction. Miniaturized components, flexible materials, and sewable electronics toolkits exemplify advances in technology that facilitated the design and development of wearable technologies. Despite such advances, creating wearable interfaces that are efficient is still challenging. The new affordances of on-body interfaces require the consideration of new interaction paradigms, so that the design decisions for the user interaction take into account key limitations in the interaction surfaces of wearables concerning input entry, processing power for output responses, and in the time and attention that wearers dedicate to complete their interaction. Under such constraints, creating interfaces with high usability levels is complex. Also, because wearables are worn continuously and in close contact with the human body, on-body interfaces must be carefully designed to neither disturb nor overwhelm wearers. The context of use and the potential of wearable technologies must be both well understood to provide users with relevant information and services using appropriate approaches and without overloading them with notifications. Wearable Interaction explains thoroughly how interactive wearables have been created taking into account the needs of end users as well as the vast potential that wearable technologies offer. Readers from academia, industry or government will learn how wearables can be designed and developed to facilitate human activities and tasks across different sectors.

Need to solve problems quickly to develop creative projects to time and to budget? Want to hone your Flash skills so you can concentrate on your animation? Then How to Cheat in Flash is for you! Chris Georgenes shows how to work from the problem to the solution - from the viewpoint of an animator who has been commissioned to create a job and is working to a deadline and to a budget. With his in-depth knowledge of the little-known secrets used by the pros to produce creative, professional animations, Chris is the go-to guru for designers and animators who want to create great animation, applications or motion design with Flash. Fully updated for CS5, How to Cheat in Flash CS5, is a goldmine of artistic inspiration, timesaving practical tips, tricks and step-by-step workthroughs that you'll wonder how you survived without it. Each techniques is designed as a double-page spread so you can prop the book up behind your keyboard or next to your monitor as a visual reference while working alongside it. Many of these workthroughs are real-world client projects, with the source files supplied for you to open and explore. With these real-life professional projects you'll discover how to: bring objects to life with cool motion effects, make it rain, snow or set your world ablaze, develop flash mobile applications and many more tips and tricks not found anywhere else!

Role-play as a Heritage Practice is the first book to examine physically performed role-enactments, such as live-action role-play (LARP), tabletop role-playing games (TRPG), and hobbyist historical reenactment (RH), from a combined game studies and heritage studies perspective. Demonstrating that non-digital role-plays, such as TRPG and LARP, share many features with RH, the book contends that all three may be considered as heritage practices. Studying these role-plays as three distinct genres of playful, participatory and performative forms of engagement with cultural heritage, Mochocki demonstrates how an exploration of the affordances of each genre can be valuable. Showing that a player's engagement with history or heritage material is always multi-layered, the book clarifies that the layers may be conceptualised simultaneously as types of heritage authenticity and as types of in-game immersion. It is also made clear that RH, TRPG and LARP share commonalities with a multitude of other media, including video games, historical fiction and film. Existing within, and contributing to, the fiction and non-fiction mediasphere, these role-enactments are shaped by the same large-scale narratives and discourses that persons, families, communities, and nations use to build memory and identity. Role-play as a Heritage Practice will be of great interest to academics and students engaged in the study of heritage, memory, nostalgia, role-playing, historical games, performance, fans and transmedia narratology.

Numerical and Analytical Methods with MATLAB? presents extensive coverage of the MATLAB programming language for engineers. It demonstrates how the built-in functions of MATLAB can be used to solve systems of linear equations, ODEs, roots of transcendental equations, statistical problems, optimization problems, control systems problems, and stress analysis problems. These built-in functions are essentially black boxes to students. By combining MATLAB with basic numerical and analytical techniques, the mystery of what these black boxes might contain is somewhat alleviated.

This classroom-tested text first reviews the essentials involved in writing computer programs as well as fundamental aspects of MATLAB. It next explains how matrices can solve problems of linear equations, how to obtain the roots of algebraic and transcendental equations, how to evaluate integrals, and how to solve various ODEs. After exploring the features of Simulink, the book discusses curve fitting, optimization problems, and PDE problems, such as the vibrating string, unsteady heat conduction, and sound waves. The focus then shifts to the solution of engineering problems via iteration procedures, differential equations via Laplace transforms, and stress analysis problems via the finite element method. The final chapter examines control systems theory, including the design of single-input single-output (SISO) systems.

Two Courses in One Textbook
The first six chapters are appropriate for a lower level course at the sophomore level. The remaining chapters are ideal for a course at the senior undergraduate or first-year graduate level. Most of the chapters contain projects that require students to write a computer program in MATLAB that produces tables, graphs, or both. Many sample MATLAB programs (scripts) in the text provide guidance on completing these projects.

Based on course notes of SIGGRAPH course teaching techniques for real-time rendering of volumetric data and effects; covers both applications in scientific visualization and real-time rendering. Starts with the basics (texture-based ray casting) and then improves and expands the algorithms incrementally. Book includes source code, algorithms, diagrams, and rendered graphics.

Logic is now widely recognized as one of the foundational disciplines of computing, and its applications reach almost every aspect of the subject, from software engineering and hardware to programming languages and AI. The Handbook of Logic in Computer Science is a multi-volume work covering all the major areas of application of logic to theoretical computer science. The handbook comprises six volumes, each containing five or six chapters giving an in-depth overview of one of the major topics in field. It is the result of many years of cooperative effort by some of the most eminent frontline researchers in the field, and will no doubt be the standard reference work in logic and theoretical computer science for years to come. Volume 3: Semantic Structures covers all the fundamental topics of semantics in logic and computation. The extensive chapters are the result of several years of coordinated research, and each have a thematic perspective. Together, they offer the reader the latest in research work, and the book will be indispensable to anyone seriously involved in the subject.

Improving Business Agility with EDA Going beyond SOA, enterprises can gain even greater agility by implementing event-driven architectures (EDAs) that automatically detect and react to significant business events. However, EDA planning and deployment is complex, and even experienced SOA architects and developers need expert guidance. In Event-Driven Architecture, four leading IT innovators present both the theory of EDA and practical, step-by-step guidance to implementing it successfully. The authors first establish a thorough and workable definition of EDA and explore how EDA can help solve many of today's most difficult business and IT challenges. You'll learn how EDAs work, what they can do today, and what they might be able to do as they mature. You'll learn how to determine whether an EDA approach makes sense in your environment and how to overcome the difficult interoperability and integration issues associated with successful deployment. Finally, the authors present chapter-length case studies demonstrating how both full and partial EDA implementations can deliver exceptional business value. Coverage includes How SOA and Web services can power event-driven architectures The role of SOA infrastructure, governance, and security in EDA environments EDA core components: event consumers and producers, message backbones, Web service transport, and more EDA patterns, including simple event processing, event stream processing, and complex event processing Designing flexible stateless events that can respond to unpredictable customers, suppliers, and business partners Addressing technical and business challenges such as project management and communication EDA at work: real-world applications across multiple verticals Hugh Taylor is a social software evangelist for IBM Lotus Software. He coauthored Understanding Enterprise SOA and has written extensively on Web services and SOA. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. Angela Yochem is an executive in a multinational technology company and is a recognized thought leader in architecture and large-scale technology management. Les Phillips, VP, enterprise architecture, at SunTrust Banks Inc., is responsible for defining the strategic and business IT foundation for many areas of the enterprise. Frank Martinez, EVP, product strategy, at SOA Software, is a recognized expert on distributed, enterprise application, and infrastructure platforms. He has served as senior operating executive for several venture-backed firms and helped build Intershop Communications into a multibillion-dollar public company. Foreword xi Preface xii Introduction 1 Event-Driven Architecture: A Working Definition 1 The "New" Era of Interoperability Dawns 6 The ETA for Your EDA 9 Endnotes 9 PART I THE THEORY OF EDA Chapter 1 EDA: Opportunities and Obstacles 13 The Vortex 13 EDA: A Working Systemic Definition 14 The (Not So Smooth) Path to EDA 24 Defining Interoperability 26 Drivers of Interoperability 28 Application Integration: A Means to Interoperate 29 Interoperation and Business Process Management 31 Is There a Diet for All This Spaghetti? 35 How Architecture Promotes Integration 37 Management and Governance 39 Chapter Summary 43 Endnote 45 Chapter 2 SOA: The Building Blocks of EDA 47 Making You an Offer You Can't Understand 47 SOA: The Big Picture 48 Defining Service 49 Service-Based Integration 50 Web Services 51 What Is SOA? 59 Loose Coupling in the SOA 60 Chapter Summary 61 Chapter 3 Characteristics of EDA 63 Firing Up the Corporate Neurons 63 Revisiting the Enterprise Nervous System 63 The Ideal EDA 78 BAM--A Related Concept 86 Chapter Summary 87 Endnotes 89 Chapter 4 The Potential of EDA 91 Introduction 91 EDA's Potential in Enterprise Computing 91 EDA and Enterprise Agility 100 EDA and Society's Computing Needs 102 EDA and Compliance 107 Chapter Summary 108 Chapter 5 The SOA-EDA Connection 111 Getting Real 111 Event Services 112 The Service Network 114 Implementing the SOA and Service Network 116 How to Design an SOA 122 The Real "Bottom Line" 134 Chapter Summary 137 PART II EDA IN PRACTICE Chapter 6 Thinking EDA 141 A Novel Mind-Set 141 Reducing Central Control 142 Thinking about EDA Implementation 148 When EDA Is Not the Answer 151 An EDA Product Examined 153 Chapter Summary 157 Endnotes 158 Chapter 7 Case Study: Airline Flight Control 159 Learning Objectives 160 Business Context: Airline Crunch Time 160 The Ideal Airline Flight Control EDA 167 What FEDA Might Look Like in Real Life 176 Program Success 197 Chapter Summary 206 Endnotes 207 Chapter 8 Case Study: Anti-Money Laundering 209 Learning Objectives 210 Cracking a Trillion Dollar, Global Crime Wave 210 IT Aspects of Anti-Money Laundering 216 EDA as a Weapon in the War on Money Laundering 221 Chapter Summary 259 Endnotes 260 Chapter 9 Case Study: Event-Driven Productivity Infrastructure 261 Learning Objectives 262 The Often Inadequate Human Link in the EDA 262 Overview of Productivity Infrastructure 264 The Potential Benefits of EDA-PI Integration 267 ProdCo, an EDA-PI Integration Scenario 273 Chapter Summary 293 Endnotes 294

Running your systems in the cloud doesn't automatically make them secure. To create secure applications and infrastructure on AWS, you need to understand the tools and features the platform provides and learn new approaches to configuring and managing them. Written by security engineer Dylan Shields, AWS Security provides comprehensive coverage on the key tools and concepts you can use to defend AWS-based systems. You'll learn how to honestly assess your existing security protocols, protect against the most common attacks on cloud applications, and apply best practices to configuring Identity and Access Management and Virtual Private Clouds. about the technology Rapid iteration, easy scaling, and huge savings have caused a mass migration to AWS. However, running in the cloud requires you to modify the security practices you use in on-prem infrastructure. Users of AWS who fail to adapt run the risk of exposing their business and their customers to an attack. Luckily, AWS comes with a stack of tools and services that offer a high level of control over your cloud security. about the book AWS Security is an invaluable guide that you'll want to have on hand when you're facing any cloud security problem. With a cookbook-style delivery, it's filled with well-documented examples and procedures you can apply to common AWS security issues. This book covers best practices for access policies, data protection, auditing, continuous monitoring, and incident response. You'll also explore several deliberately insecure applications, including a social media site and a mobile app, learning the exploits and vulnerabilities commonly used to attack them and the security practices to counter those attacks. With this practical primer, you'll be well prepared to evaluate your system's security, detect threats, and respond with confidence. what's inside Securely grant access to AWS resources to coworkers and customers Develop policies for ensuring proper access controls Lock-down network controls using VPCs Record audit logs and use them to identify attacks Track and assess the security of an AWS account Common attacks and vulnerabilities about the reader For software and security engineers building and securing AWS applications. about the author Dylan Shields is a software engineer working on Quantum Computing at AWS. Previously, Dylan was the first engineer on the AWS Security Hub team. He has also worked at Google Cloud, focusing on the security and reliability of their serverless data warehouse, BigQuery.

Functional Programming in Kotlin is a reworked version of the bestselling Functional Programming in Scala, with all code samples, instructions, and exercises translated into the powerful Kotlin language. In this authoritative guide, you'll take on the challenge of learning functional programming from first principles, and start writing Kotlin code that's easier to read, easier to reuse, better for concurrency, and less prone to bugs and errors. about the technologyKotlin is a new JVM language designed to interoperate with Java and offer an improved developer experience for creating new applications. It's already a top choice for writing web services, and Android apps. Although it preserves Java's OO roots, Kotlin really shines when you adopt a functional programming mindset. By learning the core principles and practices of functional programming outlined in this book, you'll start writing code that's easier to read, easier to test and reuse, better for concurrency, and less prone to bugs. about the book Functional Programming in Kotlin is a serious tutorial for programmers looking to learn FP and apply it to the everyday business of coding. Based on the bestselling Functional Programming in Scala, this book guides intermediate Java and Kotlin programmers from basic techniques to advanced topics in a logical, concise, and clear progression. In it, you'll find concrete examples and exercises that open up the world of functional programming. The book will deliver practical mastery of FP using Kotlin and a valuable perspective on program design that you can apply to other languages. what's inside Functional programming techniques for real-world applications Write combinator libraries Identify common structures and idioms in functional design Code for simplicity, modularity, and fewer bugs about the readerFor intermediate Kotlin and Java developers. No experience with functional programming is required. about the author Marco Vermeulen has almost two decades of programming experience on the JVM, with much of that time spent on functional programming using Scala and Kotlin. Runar Bjarnason and Paul Chiusano are the authors of Functional Programming in Scala, on which this book is based. They are internationally-recognized experts in functional programming and the Scala programming language.

This significantly updated new edition of "Developing Java Software" is a thorough presentation of object-oriented design and programming concepts using the Java 5 programming language. The book takes the reader from the basics of using Java 5 to the creation of complete, object-oriented programs. Following an 'objects early' approach, the core elements of the Java language are covered, including the use of recently added features such as "generics,"

The encouragement of the proper creation and use of classes, and the demonstration of the strategies used to create good quality code are at the core of this book. You will learn how Java programs work and how they can be designed and implemented in an organized and systematic way. In addition, the book addresses how a Java programming project should be managed and introduces the "Ant" build tool and the "Subversion" version control system.

Testing has always been an important part of "Developing Java Software," This edition provides new chapters which give a detailed introduction to Test-driven Development (TDD). This approach to programming introduces more rigor to writing programs by placing emphasis on writing high quality testable and tested code from the outset. A series of examples and case studies shows how TDD works and highlights the strategies for testing code.

Reflecting recent changes to the Java programming language and newly focused on first courses in programming, this excellent primer is ideal for classroom use or self-study. The many motivating examples and larger case studies show how core ideas can be applied when creating real applications, and show how to use object-oriented methods effectively to createrobust, reliable, and fully-tested Java applications.

This book is for Visual Basic developers who want to learn how to develop professional web applications with Microsoft's ASP.NET 3.5. The first 4 chapters present a quick-start course that works both for beginners and for experienced web developers who are new to ASP.NET. Then, the next four sections present (1) the skills you need for any business application, (2) the skills you need for database applications, (3) the skills you need for e-commerce applications, and (4) the skills you need for developing code that can be reused in other web applications. Along the way, you will learn about .NET 3.5 enhancements that streamline web development, like the ListView and DataPager controls, LINQ, and AJAX.

This book includes a variety of articles which look critically and judiciously at Google and its products, with a focus on Google Scholar and Google Book Search. It also examines their usefulness in a public service context. Its ultimate aim is to assess the use of Google as a major information resource. Its subject matter deals with online megasearch engines and their influence on reference librarianship, the impact of Google on information seeking, librarianship and the development of book digitization projects in which Google Book Search plays its part.

This book will be of interest to librarians across all educational sectors, library science scholars and publishers.

This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Library Administration.

In the rapidly-changing world of the Internet and the Web, theory and research struggle to keep up with technological, social, and economic developments. In education in particular, a proliferation of novel practices, applications, and forms -- from bulletin boards to Webcasts, from online educational games to open educational resources -- have come to be addressed under the rubric of «e-learning. In response to these phenomena, Re-thinking E-Learning Research introduces a number of research frameworks and methodologies relevant to e-learning. The book outlines methods for the analysis of content, narrative, genre, discourse, hermeneutic-phenomenological investigation, and critical and historical inquiry. It provides examples of pairings of method and subject matter that include narrative research into the adaptation of blogs in a classroom setting; the discursive-psychological analysis of student conversations with artificially intelligent agents; a genre analysis of an online discussion; and a phenomeno-logical study of online mathematics puzzles. Introducing practical applications and spanning a wide range of the possibilities for e-learning, this book will be useful for students, teachers, and researchers in e-learning.

This book presents the most up-to-date coverage of procedural content generation (PCG) for games, specifically the procedural generation of levels, landscapes, items, rules, quests, or other types of content. Each chapter explains an algorithm type or domain, including fractal methods, grammar-based methods, search-based and evolutionary methods, constraint-based methods, and narrative, terrain, and dungeon generation. The authors are active academic researchers and game developers, and the book is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students of courses on games and creativity; game developers who want to learn new methods for content generation; and researchers in related areas of artificial intelligence and computational intelligence.

"My absolute favorite for this kind of interview preparation is Steven Skiena's The Algorithm Design Manual. More than any other book it helped me understand just how astonishingly commonplace ... graph problems are -- they should be part of every working programmer's toolkit. The book also covers basic data structures and sorting algorithms, which is a nice bonus. ... every 1 - pager has a simple picture, making it easy to remember. This is a great way to learn how to identify hundreds of problem types." (Steve Yegge, Get that Job at Google) "Steven Skiena's Algorithm Design Manual retains its title as the best and most comprehensive practical algorithm guide to help identify and solve problems. ... Every programmer should read this book, and anyone working in the field should keep it close to hand. ... This is the best investment ... a programmer or aspiring programmer can make." (Harold Thimbleby, Times Higher Education) "It is wonderful to open to a random spot and discover an interesting algorithm. This is the only textbook I felt compelled to bring with me out of my student days.... The color really adds a lot of energy to the new edition of the book!" (Cory Bart, University of Delaware) "The is the most approachable book on algorithms I have." (Megan Squire, Elon University) --- This newly expanded and updated third edition of the best-selling classic continues to take the "mystery" out of designing algorithms, and analyzing their efficiency. It serves as the primary textbook of choice for algorithm design courses and interview self-study, while maintaining its status as the premier practical reference guide to algorithms for programmers, researchers, and students. The reader-friendly Algorithm Design Manual provides straightforward access to combinatorial algorithms technology, stressing design over analysis. The first part, Practical Algorithm Design, provides accessible instruction on methods for designing and analyzing computer algorithms. The second part, the Hitchhiker's Guide to Algorithms, is intended for browsing and reference, and comprises the catalog of algorithmic resources, implementations, and an extensive bibliography. NEW to the third edition: -- New and expanded coverage of randomized algorithms, hashing, divide and conquer, approximation algorithms, and quantum computing -- Provides full online support for lecturers, including an improved website component with lecture slides and videos -- Full color illustrations and code instantly clarify difficult concepts -- Includes several new "war stories" relating experiences from real-world applications -- Over 100 new problems, including programming-challenge problems from LeetCode and Hackerrank. -- Provides up-to-date links leading to the best implementations available in C, C++, and Java Additional Learning Tools: -- Contains a unique catalog identifying the 75 algorithmic problems that arise most often in practice, leading the reader down the right path to solve them -- Exercises include "job interview problems" from major software companies -- Highlighted "take home lessons" emphasize essential concepts -- The "no theorem-proof" style provides a uniquely accessible and intuitive approach to a challenging subject -- Many algorithms are presented with actual code (written in C) -- Provides comprehensive references to both survey articles and the primary literature Written by a well-known algorithms researcher who received the IEEE Computer Science and Engineering Teaching Award, this substantially enhanced third edition of The Algorithm Design Manual is an essential learning tool for students and professionals needed a solid grounding in algorithms. Professor Skiena is also the author of the popular Springer texts, The Data Science Design Manual and Programming Challenges: The Programming Contest Training Manual.

An In-Depth, Practical Guide to GPGPU Programming Using Direct3D 11 GPGPU Programming for Games and Science demonstrates how to achieve the following requirements to tackle practical problems in computer science and software engineering: Robustness Accuracy Speed Quality source code that is easily maintained, reusable, and readable The book primarily addresses programming on a graphics processing unit (GPU) while covering some material also relevant to programming on a central processing unit (CPU). It discusses many concepts of general purpose GPU (GPGPU) programming and presents practical examples in game programming and scientific programming. The author first describes numerical issues that arise when computing with floating-point arithmetic, including making trade-offs among robustness, accuracy, and speed. He then shows how single instruction multiple data (SIMD) extensions work on CPUs since GPUs also use SIMD. The core of the book focuses on the GPU from the perspective of Direct3D 11 (D3D11) and the High Level Shading Language (HLSL). This chapter covers drawing 3D objects; vertex, geometry, pixel, and compute shaders; input and output resources for shaders; copying data between CPU and GPU; configuring two or more GPUs to act as one; and IEEE floating-point support on a GPU. The book goes on to explore practical matters of programming a GPU, including code sharing among applications and performing basic tasks on the GPU. Focusing on mathematics, it next discusses vector and matrix algebra, rotations and quaternions, and coordinate systems. The final chapter gives several sample GPGPU applications on relatively advanced topics. Web ResourceAvailable on a supporting website, the author's fully featured Geometric Tools Engine for computing and graphics saves you from having to write a large amount of infrastructure code necessary for even the simplest of applications involving shader programming. The engine provides robust and accurate source code with SIMD when appropriate and GPU versions of algorithms when possible.

The networking capabilities of the Java platform have been extended considerably since the first edition of the book. This new edition covers version 1.5-1.7, the most current iterations, as well as making the following improvements:
The API (application programming interface) reference sections in each chapter, which describe the relevant parts of each class, have been replaced with (i) a summary section that lists the classes and methods used in the code, and (ii) a ?gotchas? section that mentions nonobvious or poorly-documented aspects of the objects.
In addition, the book covers several new classes and capabilities introduced in the last few revisions of the Java platform. New abstractions to be covered include NetworkInterface, InterfaceAddress, Inet4/6Address, SocketAddress/InetSocketAddress, Executor, and others; extended access to low-level network information; support for IPv6; more complete access to socket options; and scalable I/O. The example code is also modified to take advantage of new language features such as annotations, enumerations, as well as generics and implicit iterators where appropriate.
Most Internet applications use sockets to implement network communication protocols. This book's focused, tutorial-based approach helps the reader master the tasks and techniques essential to virtually all client-server projects using sockets in Java. Chapter 1 provides a genral overview of networking concepts to allow readers to synchronize the concepts with terminology. Chapter 2 introduces the mechanics of simple clients and servers. Chapter 3 covers basic message construction and parsing. Chapter 4 then deals with techniques used to build more robust clients and servers. Chapter 5 (NEW) introduces the scalable interface facilities which were introduced in Java 1.5, including the buffer and channel abstractions. Chapter 6 discusses the relationship between the programming constructs and the underlying protocol implementations in more detail. Programming concepts are introduced through simple program examples accompanied by line-by-line code commentary that describes the purpose of every part of the program. The book's Web site contains many examples of command-based sockets-related code discussed throughout the book. No other resource presents so concisely or so effectively the material necessary to get up and running with Java sockets programming.
KEY FEATURES
* Focused, tutorial-based instruction in key sockets programming techniques allows reader to quickly come up to speed on Java applications.
* Concise and up-to-date coverage of the most recent platform (1.7) for Java
applications in networking technology
* Provides code for all example programs via a companion Web site to let the reader see the important objects and methods in context and to understand the purpose of each line of code.

Architecture for the Commons dives into an analysis of how the tectonics of a building is fundamentally linked to the economic organizations that allow them to exist. By tracing the origins and promises of current technological practices in design, the book provides an alternative path, one that reconsiders the means of achieving complexity through combinatorial strategies. This move requires reconsidering serial production with crowdsourcing and user content in mind. The ideas presented will be explored through the design research developed within Plethora Project, a design practice that explores the use of video game interfaces as a mechanism for participation and user design. The research work presented throughout the book seeks to align with a larger project that is currently taking place in many different fields: The Construction of the Commons. By developing both the ideological and physical infrastructure, the project of the Commons has become an antidote to current economic practices that perpetuate inequality. The mechanisms of the production and governance of the Commons are discussed, inviting the reader to get involved and participate in the discussion. The current political and economic landscape calls for a reformulation of our current economic practices and alternative value systems that challenge the current market monopolies. This book will be of great interest not only to architects and designers studying the impact of digital technologies in the field of design but also to researchers studying novel techniques for social participation and cooperating of communities through digital networks. The book connects principles of architecture, economics and social sciences to provide alternatives to the current production trends.

This tutorial-based book allows readers to create a first-person game from start to finish using industry-standard (and free to student) tools of Unity, Substance Painter, and Maya. The first half of the book lays out the basics of using Maya and Substance Painter to create game-ready assets. This includes polygonal modeling, UV layout, and custom texture painting. The book then covers rigging and animation solutions to create assets to be placed in the game, including animated first-person assets and motion-captured NPC animations. Finally, readers can put it all together and build interactivity that allows the player to create a finished game using the assets built and animated earlier in the book. * Written by industry professionals with real-world experience in building assets and games * Build a complete game from start to finish * Learn what the pros use: construct all assets using the tools used at game studios across the world * All software used are free to students * When complete, students will have a playable version of an FPS game Jingtian Li is a graduate of China's Central Academy of Fine Arts and New York's School of Visual Arts, where he earned an MFA in Computer Art. He currently is an Assistant Professor of 3D Animation & Game Design at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. Adam Watkins is a 20-year veteran of 3D education. He holds an MFA in 3D Animation and a BFA in Theatre Arts from Utah State University. He currently is the Coordinator and Professor of the 3D Animation & Game Department at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. Kassandra Arevalo is an instructor of 3D Animation & Game Design at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. She previously worked as an animator at Immersed Games. Matt Tovar is an industry veteran animator. He has worked at Naughty Dog, Infinity Ward, and Sony Interactive on such games as The Last of Us, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and most recently Marvel's Avengers with Crystal Dynamics. He is an Assistant Professor of 3D Animation at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas.

This book offers a highly accessible introduction to natural language processing, the field that supports a variety of language technologies, from predictive text and email filtering to automatic summarization and translation. With it, you'll learn how to write Python programs that work with large collections of unstructured text. You'll access richly annotated datasets using a comprehensive range of linguistic data structures, and you'll understand the main algorithms for analyzing the content and structure of written communication. Packed with examples and exercises, Natural Language Processing with Python will help you: * Extract information from unstructured text, either to guess the topic or identify "named entities" * Analyze linguistic structure in text, including parsing and semantic analysis * Access popular linguistic databases, including WordNet and treebanks * Integrate techniques drawn from fields as diverse as linguistics and artificial intelligence This book will help you gain practical skills in natural language processing using the Python programming language and the Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) open source library. If you're interested in developing web applications, analyzing multilingual news sources, or documenting endangered languages -- or if you're simply curious to have a programmer's perspective on how human language works -- you'll find Natural Language Processing with Python both fascinating and immensely useful.