On the Way to the Web: The Secret History of the Internet and Its Founders is an absorbing chronicle of the inventive, individualistic, and often cantankerous individuals who set the Internet free. Michael A. Banks describes how the online population created a new culture and turned a new frontier into their vision of the future. This book will introduce you to the innovators who laid the foundation for the Internet and the World Wide Web, the man who invented online chat, and the people who invented the products all of us use online every day. Learn where, when, how and why the Internet came into being, and exactly what hundreds of thousands of people were doing online before the Web. See who was behind it all, and what inspired them.

While aviation fatalities have thankfully fallen dramatically in recent years, the phenomena of complexity and cognitive bias have been shown to be factors in many accidents. An understanding of these phenomena promises to bring the fatality rate even lower, and a deeper understanding of commercial aircraft in the context of systems engineering will contribute to that trend. Systems Approach to the Design of Commercial Aircraft describes commercial aircraft from an advanced systems point of view, addressing complexity, cybersecurity, and systems architecting. In addition, it provides an explanation of systems engineering, describes how systems engineering forms a framework for commercial aircraft, covers how systems engineering and systems architecting relate to commercial aircraft, addresses complexity, and shows how humans fit into systems engineering and the importance for commercial aircraft. It goes onto present how cybersecurity plays an important role in the mix and how human interface fits in. The readership includes designers of aircraft, manufacturers, researchers, systems engineers, and students. Scott Jackson is a fellow of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) and the author of Systems Engineering for Commercial Aircraft (1997 and 2015) in English and Chinese. Ricardo Moraes dos Santos is a senior systems engineer at EMBRAER S/A and an INCOSE Brazil chapter director. He works with Architecting process (Corporate) and is head of Cybersecurity and Safety (STPA Applications) at EMBRAER S/A.

This handbook offers comprehensive coverage of recent advancements in Big Data technologies and related paradigms. Chapters are authored by international leading experts in the field, and have been reviewed and revised for maximum reader value. The volume consists of twenty-five chapters organized into four main parts. Part one covers the fundamental concepts of Big Data technologies including data curation mechanisms, data models, storage models, programming models and programming platforms. It also dives into the details of implementing Big SQL query engines and big stream processing systems. Part Two focuses on the semantic aspects of Big Data management including data integration and exploratory ad hoc analysis in addition to structured querying and pattern matching techniques. Part Three presents a comprehensive overview of large scale graph processing. It covers the most recent research in large scale graph processing platforms, introducing several scalable graph querying and mining mechanisms in domains such as social networks. Part Four details novel applications that have been made possible by the rapid emergence of Big Data technologies such as Internet-of-Things (IOT), Cognitive Computing and SCADA Systems. All parts of the book discuss open research problems, including potential opportunities, that have arisen from the rapid progress of Big Data technologies and the associated increasing requirements of application domains. Designed for researchers, IT professionals and graduate students, this book is a timely contribution to the growing Big Data field. Big Data has been recognized as one of leading emerging technologies that will have a major contribution and impact on the various fields of science and varies aspect of the human society over the coming decades. Therefore, the content in this book will be an essential tool to help readers understand the development and future of the field.

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.

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.

This volume critically analyzes the multiple lives of the "gamer" in India. It explores the "everyday" of the gaming life from the player's perspective, not just to understand how the games are consumed but also to analyze how the gamer influences the products' many (virtual) lives. Using an intensive ethnographic approach and in-depth interviews, this volume situates the practice of gaming under a broader umbrella of digital leisure activities and foregrounds the proliferation of gaming as a new media form and cultural artifact; critically questions the term gamer and the many debates surrounding the gamer tag to expand on how the gaming identity is constructed and expressed; details participants' gaming habits, practices and contexts from a cultural perspective and analyzes the participants' responses to emerging industry trends, reflections on playing practices and their relationships to friends, communities and networks in gaming spaces; and examines the offline and online spaces of gaming as sites of contestation between developers of games and the players. A holistic study covering one of the largest video game bases in the world, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of cultural studies, media and communication studies and science and technology studies, as well as be of great appeal to the general reader.

Among the group of physics honors students huddled in 1957 on a Colorado mountain watching Sputnik bisect the heavens, one young scientist was destined, three short years later, to become a key player in America s own top-secret spy satellite program. One of our era s most prolific mathematicians, Karl Gustafson was given just two weeks to write the first US spy satellite s software. The project would fundamentally alter America s Cold War strategy, and this autobiographical account of a remarkable academic life spent in the top flight tells this fascinating inside story for the first time.

Gustafson takes you from his early pioneering work in computing, through fascinating encounters with Nobel laureates and Fields medalists, to his current observations on mathematics, science and life. He tells of brushes with death, being struck by lightning, and the beautiful women who have been a part of his journey."

In this complete revision and expansion of his first SQL Puzzles book, Joe Celko challenges you with his trickiest puzzles and then helps solve them with a variety of solutions and explanations. Joe demonstrates the thought processes that are involved in attacking a problem from an SQL perspective to help advanced database programmers solve the puzzles you frequently face. These techniques not only help with the puzzle at hand, but help develop the mindset needed to solve the many difficult SQL puzzles you face every day. Of course, part of the fun is to see whether or not you can write better solutions than Joe s.
* A great collection of tricky SQL puzzles with a variety of solutions and explanations.
* Uses the proven format of puzzles and solutions to provide a user-friendly, practical look into SQL programming problems - many of which will help users solve their own problems.
* New edition features:
Many new puzzles added
Dozens of new solutions to puzzles, and using features in SQL-99
Code is edited to conform to SQL STYLE rules
New chapter on temporal query puzzles
New chapter on common misconceptions about SQL and RDBMS that leads to problems"

Human Capital Systems, Analytics, and Data Mining provides human capital professionals, researchers, and students with a comprehensive and portable guide to human capital systems, analytics and data mining. The main purpose of this book is to provide a rich tool set of methods and tutorials for Human Capital Management Systems (HCMS) database modeling, analytics, interactive dashboards, and data mining that is independent of any human capital software vendor offerings and is equally usable and portable among both commercial and internally developed HCMS. The book begins with an overview of HCMS, including coverage of human resource systems history and current HCMS Computing Environments. It next explores relational and dimensional database management concepts and principles. HCMS Instructional databases developed by the Author for use in Graduate Level HCMS and Compensation Courses are used for database modeling and dashboard design exercises. Exciting knowledge discovery and research Tutorials and Exercises using Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) and data mining tools through replication of actual original pay equity research by the author are included. New findings concerning Gender Based Pay Equity Research through the lens Comparable Worth and Occupational Mobility are covered extensively in Human Capital Metrics, Analytics and Data Mining Chapters.

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.

Mobile Cloud Computing: Models, Implementation, and Security provides a comprehensive introduction to mobile cloud computing, including key concepts, models, and relevant applications. The book focuses on novel and advanced algorithms, as well as mobile app development. The book begins with an overview of mobile cloud computing concepts, models, and service deployments, as well as specific cloud service models. It continues with the basic mechanisms and principles of mobile computing, as well as virtualization techniques. The book also introduces mobile cloud computing architecture, design, key techniques, and challenges. The second part of the book covers optimizations of data processing and storage in mobile clouds, including performance and green clouds. The crucial optimization algorithm in mobile cloud computing is also explored, along with big data and service computing. Security issues in mobile cloud computing are covered in-depth, including a brief introduction to security and privacy issues and threats, as well as privacy protection techniques in mobile systems. The last part of the book features the integration of service-oriented architecture with mobile cloud computing. It discusses web service specifications related to implementations of mobile cloud computing. The book not only presents critical concepts in mobile cloud systems, but also drives readers to deeper research, through open discussion questions. Practical case studies are also included. Suitable for graduate students and professionals, this book provides a detailed and timely overview of mobile cloud computing for a broad range of readers.

This book presents recent developments on the theoretical, algorithmic, and application aspects of Big Data in Complex and Social Networks. The book consists of four parts, covering a wide range of topics. The first part of the book focuses on data storage and data processing. It explores how the efficient storage of data can fundamentally support intensive data access and queries, which enables sophisticated analysis. It also looks at how data processing and visualization help to communicate information clearly and efficiently. The second part of the book is devoted to the extraction of essential information and the prediction of web content. The book shows how Big Data analysis can be used to understand the interests, location, and search history of users and provide more accurate predictions of User Behavior. The latter two parts of the book cover the protection of privacy and security, and emergent applications of big data and social networks. It analyzes how to model rumor diffusion, identify misinformation from massive data, and design intervention strategies. Applications of big data and social networks in multilayer networks and multiparty systems are also covered in-depth.

Visual Tracking in Conventional Minimally Invasive Surgery introduces the various tools and methodologies that can be used to enhance a conventional surgical setup with some degree of automation. The main focus of this book is on methods for tracking surgical tools and how they can be used to assist the surgeon during the surgical operation. Various notions associated with surgeon-computer interfaces and image-guided navigation are explored, with a range of experimental results. The book starts with some basic motivations for minimally invasive surgery and states the various distinctions between robotic and non-robotic (conventional) versions of this procedure. Common components of this type of operation are presented with a review of the literature addressing the automation aspects of such a setup. Examples of tracking results are shown for both motion and gesture recognition of surgical tools, which can be used as part of the surgeon-computer interface. In the case of marker-less tracking, where no special visual markers can be added to the surgical tools, the tracking results are divided into two types of methodology, depending on the nature and the estimate of the visual noise. Details of the tracking methods are presented using standard Kalman filters and particle filters. The last part of the book provides approaches for tracking a region on the surgical scene defined by the surgeon. Examples of how these tracking approaches can be used as part of image-guided navigation are demonstrated. This book is designed for control engineers interested in visual tracking, computer vision researchers and system designers involved with surgical automation, as well as surgeons, biomedical engineers, and robotic researchers.

Computer Systems Architecture provides IT professionals and students with the necessary understanding of computer hardware. It addresses the ongoing issues related to computer hardware and discusses the solutions supplied by the industry. The book describes trends in computing solutions that led to the current available infrastructures, tracing the initial need for computers to recent concepts such as the Internet of Things. It covers computers' data representation, explains how computer architecture and its underlying meaning changed over the years, and examines the implementations and performance enhancements of the central processing unit (CPU). It then discusses the organization, hierarchy, and performance considerations of computer memory as applied by the operating system and illustrates how cache memory significantly improves performance. The author proceeds to explore the bus system, algorithms for ensuring data integrity, input and output (I/O) components, methods for performing I/O, various aspects relevant to software engineering, and nonvolatile storage devices, such as hard drives and technologies for enhancing performance and reliability. He also describes virtualization and cloud computing and the emergence of software-based systems' architectures. Accessible to software engineers and developers as well as students in IT disciplines, this book enhances readers' understanding of the hardware infrastructure used in software engineering projects. It enables readers to better optimize system usage by focusing on the principles used in hardware systems design and the methods for enhancing performance.

Handbook of Robust Low-Rank and Sparse Matrix Decomposition: Applications in Image and Video Processing shows you how robust subspace learning and tracking by decomposition into low-rank and sparse matrices provide a suitable framework for computer vision applications. Incorporating both existing and new ideas, the book conveniently gives you one-stop access to a number of different decompositions, algorithms, implementations, and benchmarking techniques. Divided into five parts, the book begins with an overall introduction to robust principal component analysis (PCA) via decomposition into low-rank and sparse matrices. The second part addresses robust matrix factorization/completion problems while the third part focuses on robust online subspace estimation, learning, and tracking. Covering applications in image and video processing, the fourth part discusses image analysis, image denoising, motion saliency detection, video coding, key frame extraction, and hyperspectral video processing. The final part presents resources and applications in background/foreground separation for video surveillance. With contributions from leading teams around the world, this handbook provides a complete overview of the concepts, theories, algorithms, and applications related to robust low-rank and sparse matrix decompositions. It is designed for researchers, developers, and graduate students in computer vision, image and video processing, real-time architecture, machine learning, and data mining.

Evolutionary Psychology and Digital Games: Digital Hunter-Gatherers is the first edited volume that systematically applies evolutionary psychology to the study of the use and effects of digital games. The book is divided into four parts: Theories and Methods Emotion and Morality Social Interaction Learning and Motivation These topics reflect the main areas of digital games research as well as some of the basic categories of psychological research. The book is meant as a resource for researchers and graduate students in psychology, anthropology, media studies and communication as well as video game designers who are interested in learning more about the evolutionary roots of player behaviors and experiences.

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.

This BASICS series text, updated to include the latest information on JavaScript and HTML, provides an easy-to-follow, step-by-step introduction to all aspects of HTML and JavaScript programming. Topics covered in the book include HTML organization techniques, HTML power techniques, using images with JavaScript, and using forms with JavaScript.

Are you an SQL programmer that, like many, came to SQL after learning and writing procedural or object-oriented code? Or have switched jobs to where a different brand of SQL is being used, or maybe even been told to learn SQL yourself?
If even one answer is yes, then you need this book. A "Manual of Style" for the SQL programmer, this book is a collection of heuristics and rules, tips, and tricks that will help you improve SQL programming style and proficiency, and for formatting and writing portable, readable, maintainable SQL code. Based on many years of experience consulting in SQL shops, and gathering questions and resolving his students' SQL style issues, Joe Celko can help you become an even better SQL programmer.
+ Help you write Standard SQL without an accent or a dialect that is used in another programming language or a specific flavor of SQL, code that can be maintained and used by other people.
+ Enable you to give your group a coding standard for internal use, to enable programmers to use a consistent style.
+ Give you the mental tools to approach a new problem with SQL as your tool, rather than another programming language - one that someone else might not know!

This book offers a comprehensive examination of the theory, research, and practice of the use of digital games in second and foreign language teaching and learning (L2TL). It explores how to harness the enthusiasm, engagement, and motivation that digital gaming can inspire by adopting a gameful L2TL approach that encompasses game-enhanced, game-informed, and game-based practice. The first part of the book situates gameful L2TL in the global practices of informal learnful L2 gaming and in the theories of play and games which are then applied throughout the discussion of gameful L2TL practice that follows. This includes analysis of practices of digital game-enhanced L2TL design (the use of vernacular, commercial games), game-informed L2TL design (gamification and the general application of gameful principles to L2 pedagogy), and game-based L2TL design (the creation of digital games purposed for L2 learning). Designed as a guide for researchers and teachers, the book also offers fresh insights for scholars of applied linguistics, second language acquisition, L2 pedagogy, computer-assisted language learning (CALL), game studies, and game design that will open pathways to future developments in the field.

Data structures and tools from computational geometry help to solve problems in computer graphics; these methods have been widely adopted by the computer graphics community yielding elegant and efficient algorithms. This book focuses on algorithms and data structures that have proven to be versatile, efficient, fundamental, and easy to implement. The book familiarizes students, as well as practitioners in the field of computer graphics, with a wide range of data structures. The authors describe each data structure in detail, highlight fundamental properties, and present algorithms based on the data structure. A number of recent representative and useful algorithms from computer graphics are described in detail, illuminating the utilization of the data structure in a creative way.

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.

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.

Unlike traditional embedded systems references, this book skips routine things to focus on programming microcontrollers, specifically MCS-51 family in C using Keil IDE. The book presents seventeen case studies plus many basic programs organized around on-chip resources. This "learn-through-doing" approach appeals to busy designers. Mastering basic modules and working hands-on with the projects gives readers the basic building blocks for most 8051 programs. Whether you are a student using MCS-51 microcontrollers for project work or an embedded systems programmer, this book will kick-start your practical understanding of the most popular microcontroller, bridging the gap between microcontroller hardware experts and C programmers.

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.