May 11, 1997, was a watershed moment in the history of artificial intelligence (AI): the IBM supercomputer chess engine, Deep Blue, beat the world Chess champion, Garry Kasparov. It was the first time a machine had triumphed over a human player in a Chess tournament. Fast forward 19 years to May 9, 2016, DeepMind’s AlphaGo beat the world Go champion Lee Sedol. AI again stole the spotlight and generated a media frenzy. This time, a new type of AI algorithm, namely machine learning (ML) was ...

The release of ChatGPT has kicked off an arms race in Machine Learning (ML), however ML has also been described as a black box and very hard to understand. This book eases you into basic ML concepts and summarises the learning process in three words: initialize, adjust and repeat. This is illustrated step by step with animation to show how machines learn: from initial parameter values to adjusting each step, to the final converged parameters and predictions.In addition, this eBook+...

A project-based book that teaches beginning Python programmers how to build working, useful, and fun voice-controlled applications.This fun, hands-on book will take your basic Python skills to the next level as you build voice-controlled apps to use in your daily life. Starting with a Python refresher and an introduction to speech-recognition/text-to-speech functionalities, you’ll soon ease into more advanced topics, like making your own modules and building workin...

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods, ICFEM 2016, held in Tokyo, Japan, in November 2016. The 27 revised full papers presented together with three invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 64 submissions. The conference focuses in all areas related to formal engineering meth-ods, such as verification and validation, software engineering, formal specification and modeling, software security, and softwar...

We live in an urban age. To a degree unprecedented in human history, most of the world's people live in cities. It is thus vital, say Mark Gornik and Maria Liu Wong, for Christians to think constructively about how to live out their faith in an urban setting.In Stay in the City Gornik and Liu Wong look at what is happening in the urban church—and what Christians everywhere can learn from it. Once viewed suspiciously for their worldly temptations and vices, cities are increa...

Asian American men represent a complex group with distinct psychological and mental health concerns, yet the current counseling literature is lacking in resources for clinicians working with this population. The purpose of this text is to provide practitioners with a comprehensive overview of the current research and theory related to the important and unique issues that Asian American men experience. It offers clinicians culturally-responsive, practical counseling techniques and strategie...

This book reveals the secrets of Yamato Transport’s success in maintaining and extending its leadership in Japan’s domestic parcel delivery market. It presents six cases that illustrate how Yamato's flagship service, TA-Q-BIN, has evolved since the 1970s to the benefit of consumers, particularly urban dwellers, and how TA-Q-BIN has become an integral part of Japanese daily life. Each of the six unique cases serves as an independent teaching case for undergraduate and graduate students, des...

This book introduces Mechanistic Data Science (MDS) as a structured methodology for combining data science tools with mathematical scientific principles (i.e., “mechanistic” principles) to solve intractable problems. Traditional data science methodologies require copious quantities of data to show a reliable pattern, but the amount of required data can be greatly reduced by considering the mathematical science principles. MDS is presented here in six easy-to-follow modules: 1) Multimodal d...

By now you've probably heard that bees are disappearing--but they aren't the only species at risk. Populations of fireflies, butterflies, and ladybugs have all been declining in recent years, too. This middle grade nonfiction explains the growth, spread, and recent declines of each of these four types of insects. Exploring human causes, like the Baltimore electric company that collected fireflies to attempt to harness their phosphorescent lighting source, to natural occurrences, like the m...

PREVIOUS EDITIONThis textbook introduces the “Fundamentals of Multimedia”, addressing real issues commonly faced in the workplace. The essential concepts are explained in a practical way to enable students to apply their existing skills to address problems in multimedia. Fully revised and updated, this new edition now includes coverage of such topics as 3D TV, social networks, high-efficiency video compression and conferencing, wireless and mobile networks, and their attendant tech...

This textbook introduces the “Fundamentals of Multimedia”, addressing real issues commonly faced in the workplace. The essential concepts are explained in a practical way to enable students to apply their existing skills to address problems in multimedia. Fully revised and updated, this new edition now includes coverage of such topics as 3D TV, social networks, high-efficiency video compression and conferencing, wireless and mobile networks, and their attendant technologies.Feature...

A firewall is as good as its policies and the security of its VPN connections. The latest generation of firewalls offers a dizzying array of powerful options; they key to success is to write concise policies that provide the appropriate level of access while maximizing security. This book covers the leading firewall products: Cisco PIX, Check Point NGX, Microsoft ISA Server, Juniper's NetScreen Firewall, and SonicWall. It describes in plain English what features can be controlled by a poli...