From climate change forecasts and pandemic maps to Lego sets and Ancestry algorithms, models encompass our world and our lives. In her thought-provoking new book, Annabel Wharton begins with a definition drawn from the quantitative sciences and the philosophy of science but holds that history and critical cultural theory are essential to a fuller understanding of modeling. Considering changes in the medical body model and the architectural model, from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, Wharton demonstrates the ways in which all models are historical and political. Examining how cadavers have been described, exhibited, and visually rendered, she highlights the historical dimension of the modified body and its depictions. Analyzing the varied reworkings of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem-including by monumental commanderies of the Knights Templar, Alberti's Rucellai Tomb in Florence, Franciscans' olive wood replicas, and video game renderings-she foregrounds the political force of architectural representations. And considering black boxes-instruments whose inputs we control and whose outputs we interpret, but whose inner workings are beyond our comprehension-she surveys the threats posed by such opaque computational models, warning of the dangers that models pose when humans lose control of the means by which they are generated and understood. Engaging and wide-ranging, Models and World Making conjures new ways of seeing and critically evaluating how we make and remake the world in which we live.

Due to its comprehensive tool-set and great potential for 3D modeling, more and more architectural design and interior design firms are adapting Autodesk Maya and integrating it into their practice. There has been no book aimed at architects and designers who wish to harness the opportunities presented by this software, until now..... The book promotes parametric design. It integrates the theoretical research of computational design and Maya non-linear modeling techniques associated with simulation, animation, digital fabrication and form-finding within 2D & 3D design. Readers will learn: How to use Maya polygon and NURBS modeling tools to create non-linear procedural model. How to use Maya driver keys and relationship tools to generate parametrically negotiable solutions across various design professions. The design logic and generative processes, as well as the potential of parametric thinking as a resourceful tool for achieving diversity and complexity in form generation and fabrication. How to use Maya to prepare files for rapid prototyping and the integration of Maya into various fabrication techniques such as laser cutting, CNC milling, and 3D printing. How to create a digital simulation to simulate all aspects of surface properties and dynamic forces with Maya physics engine. How to use Maya skeleton system and animation tools to control complex architectural forms. How to create photo-realistic renderings with Maya lighting, material and texture mapping. Using several real projects as examples, the book will go through the entire rendering process step by step. How to combine Maya with various CAD/BIM tools to create an efficient design pipeline. How to use Maya MEL script to create customized tools and interface. The book includes case studies from Zaha Hadid Architects, Greg Lynn Form, Gage Clemenceau Architects, Tang & Yang Architects, as well as step by step exercises, demonstration projects and crucially a fantastic online resource which includes video tutorials, scripts, and Maya source files.

The physics and dynamics of the atmosphere and atmosphere-ocean interactions provide the foundation of modern climate models, upon which our understanding of the chemistry and biology of ocean and land surface processes are built. Originally published in 2006, Frontiers of Climate Modeling captures developments in modeling the atmosphere, and their implications for our understanding of climate change, whether due to natural or anthropogenic causes. Emphasis is on elucidating how greenhouse gases and aerosols are altering the radiative forcing of the climate system and the sensitivity of the system to such perturbations. An expert team of authors address key aspects of the atmospheric greenhouse effect, clouds, aerosols, atmospheric radiative transfer, deep convection dynamics, large scale ocean dynamics, stratosphere-troposphere interactions, and coupled ocean-atmosphere model development. The book is an important reference for researchers and advanced students interested in the forces driving the climate system and how they are modeled by climate scientists.

The authoritative reference on NEURON, the simulation environment for modeling biological neurons and neural networks that enjoys wide use in the experimental and computational neuroscience communities. This book shows how to use NEURON to construct and apply empirically based models. Written primarily for neuroscience investigators, teachers, and students, it assumes no previous knowledge of computer programming or numerical methods. Readers with a background in the physical sciences or mathematics, who have some knowledge about brain cells and circuits and are interested in computational modeling, will also find it helpful. The NEURON Book covers material that ranges from the inner workings of this program, to practical considerations involved in specifying the anatomical and biophysical properties that are to be represented in models. It uses a problem-solving approach, with many working examples that readers can try for themselves.

The bookModeling Reality covers a wide range of fascinating subjects, accessible to anyone who wants to learn about the use of computer modeling to solve a diverse range of problems, but who does not possess a specialized training in mathematics or computer science. The material presented is pitched at the level of high-school graduates, even though it covers some advanced topics (cellular automata, Shannon's measure of information, deterministic chaos, fractals, game theory, neural networks, genetic algorithms, and Turing machines). These advanced topics are explained in terms of well known simple concepts: Cellular automata - Game of Life, Shannon's formula - Game of twenty questions, Game theory - Television quiz, etc. The book is unique in explaining in a straightforward, yet complete, fashion many important ideas, related to various models of reality and their applications. Twenty-five programs, written especially for this book, are provided on an accompanying CD. They greatly enhance its pedagogical value and make learning of even the more complex topics an enjoyable pleasure.

If you're a developer looking to supplement your own data tools and services, this concise ebook covers the most useful sources of public data available today. You'll find useful information on APIs that offer broad coverage, tie their data to the outside world, and are either accessible online or feature downloadable bulk data. You'll also find code and helpful links.

This guide organizes APIs by the subjects they cover--such as websites, people, or places--so you can quickly locate the best resources for augmenting the data you handle in your own service. Categories include: Website tools such as WHOIS, bit.ly, and Compete Services that use email addresses as search terms, including Github Finding information from just a name, with APIs such as WhitePages Services, such as Klout, for locating people with Facebook and Twitter accounts Search APIs, including BOSS and Wikipedia Geographical data sources, including SimpleGeo and U.S. Census Company information APIs, such as CrunchBase and ZoomInfo APIs that list IP addresses, such as MaxMind Services that list books, films, music, and products

There has been an enormous increase in research activity aimed at elucidating the basis for cortical activity in the brain. Among modern techniques used in this area of scientific endeavour, few have proved as popular as computer simulation. Model neural networks are the subject of intense study, and some remarkable properties have already come to light: these networks are able to discriminate, remember and associate. Professor Cotterill has assembled leading experts in this burgeoning field to produce an exciting review of advances. The volume covers the creation of computer models of neural networks, and their use in the study of neural function, of cognition, memory and vision. The results and future directions explored here will have an important bearing on research into brain function, physiology, psychology, biophysics and artificial intelligence.

The simulation of physical systems requires a simplified, hierarchical approach which models each level from the atomistic to the macroscopic scale. From quantum mechanics to fluid dynamics, this book systematically treats the broad scope of computer modeling and simulations, describing the fundamental theory behind each level of approximation. Berendsen evaluates each stage in relation to its applications giving the reader insight into the possibilities and limitations of the models. Practical guidance for applications and sample programs in Python are provided. With a strong emphasis on molecular models in chemistry and biochemistry, this 2007 book will be suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on molecular modeling and simulation within physics, biophysics, physical chemistry and materials science. It will also be a useful reference to all those working in the field. Additional resources for this title including solutions for instructors and programs are available online at www.cambridge.org/9780521835275.

Create a MongoDB cluster that will to grow to meet the needs of your application. With this short and concise book, you'll get guidelines for setting up and using clusters to store a large volume of data, and learn how to access the data efficiently. In the process, you'll understand how to make your application work with a distributed database system.

"Scaling MongoDB" will help you: Set up a MongoDB cluster through sharding Work with a cluster to query and update data Operate, monitor, and backup your cluster Plan your application to deal with outages

By following the advice in this book, you'll be well on your way to building and running an efficient, predictable distributed system using MongoDB.

Many applications in science and engineering require a digital model of a real physical object. Advanced scanning technology has made it possible to scan such objects and generate point samples on their boundaries. This book, first published in 2007, shows how to compute a digital model from this point sample. After developing the basics of sampling theory and its connections to various geometric and topological properties, the author describes a suite of algorithms that have been designed for the reconstruction problem, including algorithms for surface reconstruction from dense samples, from samples that are not adequately dense and from noisy samples. Voronoi- and Delaunay-based techniques, implicit surface-based methods and Morse theory-based methods are covered. Scientists and engineers working in drug design, medical imaging, CAD, GIS, and many other areas will benefit from this first book on the subject.

Performability modelling and evaluation brings together two disciplines that have long been treated separately in different communities: computer and communication system performance evaluation and system reliability and availability evaluation.

• Provides a single-source reference covering of all aspects of performability evaluation.
• Introduces a new approach to assessing the performance and dependability of systems thus revealing system characteristics that cannot be uncovered separately by performance or reliability evaluation.
• Explains how systems can operate partially in the presence of failures by discussing:

The only complete guide to all aspects and uses of simulation—from the international leaders in the field

There has never been a single definitive source of key information on all facets of discrete-event simulation and its applications to major industries. The Handbook of Simulation brings together the contributions of leading academics, practitioners, and software developers to offer authoritative coverage of the principles, techniques, and uses of discrete-event simulation.

Comprehensive in scope and thorough in approach, the Handbook is the one reference on discrete-event simulation that every industrial engineer, management scientist, computer scientist, operations manager, or operations researcher involved in problem-solving should own, with an in-depth examination of:

• Simulation methodology, from experimental design to data analysis and more
• Recent advances, such as object-oriented simulation, on-line simulation, and parallel and distributed simulation
• Applications across a full range of manufacturing and service industries
• Guidelines for successful simulations and sound simulation project management
• Simulation software and simulation industry vendors

This book presents state-of-the-art methods in computer graphics rendering. The papers included in this volume were selected after careful review by an international committee of experts. Included are various topics related to the generation of synthetic images: visibility, global illumination, perception, hardware assisted rendering, reflectance models, real-time rendering, antialiasing, compression and image-based rendering.

This practical guide offers a short course on scaling CouchDB to meet the capacity needs of your distributed application. Through a series of scenario-based examples, this book lets you explore several methods for creating a system that can accommodate growth and meet expected demand. In the process, you learn about several tools that can help you with replication, load balancing, clustering, and load testing and monitoring.Apply performance tips for tuning your database Replicate data, using Futon and CouchDB's RESTful interface Distribute CouchDB's workload through load balancing Learn options for creating a cluster of CouchDB nodes, including BigCouch, Lounge, and Pillow Conduct distributed load testing with Tsung

This book contains the proceedings of the 10th Eurographics Workshop on Rendering, which took place from the 21st to the 23rd of June, 1999, in Granada, Spain. Origi nally an outgrowth of the annual Eurographics meeting, the workshop was organized by a dedicated group of researchers who felt there was insufficient opportunity at Eu rographics and Siggraph to exchange ideas specifically on rendering. Over the past 9 years, the workshop has become renown as an international watershed for top quality work in this field, attracting between 50 and 100 attendees each year to share their latest research. This year we received a total of 63 submissions. Each paper was carefully reviewed by two of the 25 international programme committee members, as well as two external reviewers, selected by the co-chairs from a pool of 71 individuals. (The programme committee and external reviewers are listed following the contents pages.) In this new review process, all submissions and reviews were handled electronically, with the ex ception of videos submitted with a few of the papers. This streamlined the review process considerably, while reducing the costs and confusion associated with courier delivery of hundreds of papers."

An exploration of the basis for social and economic behaviour. Using cellular automata in particular, the authors model various factors that are involved in a system of individuals who interact socially and economically with one another. Computer simulations in the social sciences provide a laboratory in which qualitative ideas about social and economic interactions can be tested. This brings a new dimension to the science, where 'explanations' abound, but are rarely subject to much experimental testing. The authors have chosen Mathematica because it has a number of features which make it uniquely qualified for use by social scientists, especially those without expertise in computer programming. Further, users can easily access and readily interact with the various 3.0 Mathematica notebooks, plus other data to be found at www.telospub.com.

The book contains the proceedings of the 8th Eurographics Rendering Workshop, which took place from 16th to 18th June, 1997, in Saint Etienne, France. After a series of seven successful events the workshop is now well established as the major international forum in the field of rendering and illumination techniques. It brought together the experts of this field. Their recent research results are compiled in this proceedings together with many color images that demonstrate new ideas and techniques. This year we received a total of 63 submissions of which 28 were selected for the workshop after a period of careful reviewing and evaluation by the 27 mem bers of the international program committee. The quality of the submissions was again very high and, unfortunately, many interesting papers had to be rejected. In addition to regular papers the program also contains two invited lectures by Shenchang Eric Chen (Live Picture) and Per Christensen (Mental Images). The papers in this proceedings contain new research results in the areas of Finite-Element and Monte-Carlo illumination algorithms, image-based render ing, outdoor and natural illumination, error metrics, perception, texture and color handling, data acquisition for rendering, and efficient use of hardware. While some contributions report results from more efficient or elegant algo rithms, others pursue new and experimental approaches to find better solutions to the open problems in rendering."

If you want to learn to create 3-D models using Google SketchUp, this "Missing Manual" is the ideal place to start. Filled with step-by-step tutorials, this entertaining, reader-friendly guide will have you creating detailed 3-D objects, including building plans, furniture, landscaping plans - even characters for computer games - in no time. "Google SketchUp: The Missing Manual" offers a hands-on tour of the program, with crystal-clear instructions for using every feature and lots of real-world examples to help you pick up the practical skills you need. It helps you learn to use the basic tools, build and animate models, and place your objects in Google Earth.With this book, you will: learn your way around the SketchUp workspace, and explore the differences between working in 2-D and 3-D; build simple 3-D shapes, save them as reusable components, and use SketchUp's Outliner to show or hide them as you work; tackle a complicated model building with lots of detail, and discover timesaving tools for using many components; animate the model by creating an interior walkthrough of your building; and, dress up your model with realistic material shading and shadows, and place it in Google Earth. It's easy to get started. Just download the program from Google.com, and follow the instructions in this book. You'll become a SketchUp master in a jiffy.

This book illustrates the ease with which various features of LISREL 8 and PRELIS 2 can be implemented in addressing research questions that lend themselves to SEM. Its purpose is threefold: (a) to present a nonmathmatical introduction to basic concepts associated with SEM, (b) to demonstrate basic applications of SEM using both the DOS and Windows versions of LISREL 8, as well as both the LISREL and SIMPLIS lexicons, and (c) to highlight particular features of the LISREL 8 and PRELIS 2 progams that address important caveats related to SEM analyses.

This book is intended neither as a text on the topic of SEM, nor as a comprehensive review of the many statistical funcitons available in the LISREL 8 and PRELIS 2 programs. Rather, the intent is to provide a practical guide to SEM using the LISREL approach. As such, the reader is "walked through" a diversity of SEM applications that include both factor analytic and full latent variable models, as well as a variety of data management procedures.

Even if you've never touched a 3D printer, these projects will excite and empower you to learn new skills, extend your current abilities, and awaken your creative impulses. Each project uses a unique combination of electronics, hand assembly techniques, custom 3D-printed parts, and software, while teaching you how to think through and execute your own ideas. Written by the founder of Printrbot, his staff, and veteran DIY authors, this book of projects exemplifies the broad range of highly personalized, limit-pushing project possibilities of 3D printing when combined with affordable electronic components and materials. In Make: 3D Printing Projects, you'll: Print and assemble a modular lamp that's suitable for beginners--and quickly gets you incorporating electronics into 3D-printed structures. Learn about RC vehicles by fabricating--and driving--your own sleek, shiny, and fast Inverted Trike. Model a 1950s-style Raygun Pen through a step-by-step primer on how to augment an existing object through rapid prototyping. Fabricate a fully functional, battery-powered screwdriver, while learning how to tear down and reconstruct your own tools. Get hands-on with animatronics by building your own set of life-like mechanical eyes. Make a Raspberry Pi robot that rides a monorail of string, can turn corners, runs its own web server, streams video, and is remote-controlled from your phone. Build and customize a bubble-blowing robot, flower watering contraption, and a DIY camera gimbal.

Simulations and the Future of Learning offers trainers and educators the information and perspective they need to understand, design, build, and deploy computer simulations for this generation. Looking back on his recent first-hand experience as lead designer for an advanced leadership development simulation, author Clark Aldrich has created a detailed case study of the creation and deployment of an e-learning simulation that had the development cycle of a modern computer game. With this book Aldrich, a leader in the e-learning field, has created an intriguing roadmap for the future of learning while taking us along on an entertaining rollercoaster ride of trial and error, success and failure. Simulations and the Future of Learning outlines the design principles and critical decisions around any simulation's components— the interface, the physics and animation systems, the artificial intelligence, and sets and figures. Using this accessible resource, readers will learn how to create and evaluate successful simulations that have the following characteristics: authentic and relevant scenarios; applied pressure situations that tap user's emotion and force them to act; a sense of unrestricted options; and replayability.

Why take months to learn every button in 3ds Max when you can create great visuals with just a few key tools? Utilize the tool of choice, 3ds Max 2015, for generating realistic environments, seamless CG effects, and jaw dropping games in a matter of hours. You can use the memory-hogging methods that choke your display and take forever to render, or you can get it done quickly and efficiently.

Michael McCarthy offers a goldmine of artistic inspiration, timesaving tips & tricks, and step-by-step walkthroughs you ll wonder how you every got by without it This new edition has been completely revamped for 3ds Max 2015. Start animating today with detailed tutorials, source files, bitmaps, and video demonstrations all featured on the companion website."

How do you use R to import, manage, visualize, and analyze real-world data? With this short, hands-on tutorial, you learn how to collect online data, massage it into a reasonable form, and work with it using R facilities to interact with web servers, parse HTML and XML, and more. Rather than use canned sample data, you'll plot and analyze current home foreclosure auctions in Philadelphia.

This practical mashup exercise shows you how to access spatial data in several formats locally and over the Web to produce a map of home foreclosures. It's an excellent way to explore how the R environment works with R packages and performs statistical analysis.Parse messy data from public foreclosure auction postings Plot the data using R's PBSmapping package Import US Census data to add context to foreclosure data Use R's lattice and latticeExtra packages for data visualization Create multidimensional correlation graphs with the pairs() scatterplot matrix package

Unlike many AutoCAD competitors, this book covers only the basics and uses mixed units -inches, meters, feet, kilometers, etc., to illustrate the myriad drawing and editing tools for this popular application. Use the DVD to set up drawing exercises and projects, see all of the book s figures in color, and draw with a trial version of AutoCAD 2012. AutoCAD 2012 Beginning and Intermediate includes 50 exercises or mini-workshops, that complete small projects from concept through actual plotting. Solving all of the workshops will simulate the creation of two full projects (architectural and mechanical) from beginning to end, without overlooking any of the basic commands and functions in AutoCAD 2012.BRIEF TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1: AutoCAD 2012 Basics. 2: Precise Drafting in AutoCAD 2012. 3: Modifying Commands. 4: Construction Commands. 5: Layers and Inquiry Commands. 6: Blocks and Hatch. 7: Text and Tables. 8: Dimensioning. 9: Plotting. 10: Projects."

This two-volume set (CCIS 175 and CCIS 176) constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Education, Simulation and Modeling, CSEM 2011, held in Wuhan, China, in June 2011. The 148 revised full papers presented in both volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from a large number of submissions. The papers cover issues such as multimedia and its application, robotization and automation, mechatronics, computer education, modern education research, control systems, data mining, knowledge management, image processing, communication software, database technology, artificial intelligence, computational intelligence, simulation and modeling, agent based simulation, biomedical visualization, device simulation & modeling, object-oriented simulation, Web and security visualization, vision and visualization, coupling dynamic modeling theory, discretization method, and modeling method research.