Over 90 hands-on recipes to help you create digital comics from page setup to exporting the final product About This Book Design creative and custom digital comics with the perfection equivalent of pen-and-paper drawings Explore the latest features from Manga Studio EX 5 such as custom brush effects, layers, masks, 3D objects, panels, and multiple-page story layout A pragmatic manual with engaging recipes and attractive screenshots that make comic creation fun and easy Who This Book Is For This book is intended for competent comic artists working on Manga Studio who want to create more attractive comics by using powerful tools and features from software for digital comic creation. What You Will Learn Create story files and custom pages for any Web or publishing project Customize brushes for special ink effects, hatching and cross-hatching, and much more Work with vector images in Manga Studio EX 5 Use the new Symmetry ruler and the new Line tools to create your illustrations faster and more efficiently Make and save custom screentones, and add them to your comic pages Punch up your illustrations with color palettes and special effects Add 3D models to create or accentuate your comic scenes Finish a project by exporting it for the Web or for a printed collection In Detail Manga Studio is a software application for the digital creation of comics and manga. Manga Studio EX 5 has all the features of Manga Studio 5, professional story creation tools, and other special features that make it the ultimate illustration tool for serious comic, manga, and graphic artists. Made specifically for comic artists and illustrators, it has some of the most powerful digital art creation tools available. From digital perspective rulers to a library of screentones, Manga Studio 5 works for the artist with an intuitive, customizable interface and tools. With Manga Studio EX 5, you can create custom page templates, save commonly used designs, make custom brushes, mimic traditional media, pose 3D objects directly on the art canvas, and export all of your comic pages for print or the Web. The book starts with everything you need to know to set up custom pages for your comic or Manga project. These recipes will take you all the way through to exporting your illustrations for print or to display them on the Web. You will learn how to create custom brushes that you will use for inking, or for repetitive tasks such as drawing foliage or rubble. Next, you will move on to understanding Layer Modes and Layer Masks. Then, you'll learn how to finish up your illustrations with color, screentones, special effects, and 3D objects. Finally, you will be taught to export your hard work and share it with the world, either through the Web or in print. This cookbook will give you just the right recipes to turn on the power of Manga Studio EX 5 and get you creating more illustrations faster and more efficiently. Style and approach An easy-to-follow, and informative book full of recipes that explore real-world topics for the comic creator. Each recipe is explained with detailed steps and interesting screenshots.

A detailed guide to the complex new animation tools in Unity, packed with clear instructions and illustrated with original content in the context of a next generation zombie apocalypse adventure game About This Book Create and export models and animation sequences to Unity from 3ds max and Maya Prepare character models and animation for games using Mecanim’s rigging tools Retarget, adjust, and mix and match motion capture and other animation data Write and edit *s compatible with Mecanim Animation Controllers Who This Book Is For If you are a Unity developer looking to get to grips with the character animation specific tools, a 3D software user who is new to Unity, or a beginner game developer who is interested in character animation and interaction, this book is ideal for you. Some experience with either the Unity interface or basic 3D coordinates is recommended, but not required. What You Will Learn Learn how to prepare a rigged character model to receive animation within Unity Acquire efficient techniques to refine and optimize motion capture data Retarget animation sequences between different character rigs Discover how to rig a humanoid character and export for use in Unity Script character interaction for a First Person character model Create dynamic animation sequences from scratch using keyframe techniques, in a variety of 3D software packages Learn Project Management in Unity Understand how to set up a complex facial rig for speech Set up Animation Controllers with masked states and blend trees to create seamless and additive animation transitions Construct a ragdoll game object and instantiate it in a game Devise Mecanim animation integration for the player and AI driven animation for enemy characters In Detail Game animation for independent developers has taken a giant leap forward with Unity's Mecanim toolset, which streamlines the import/export, retargeting, and many other aspects of the character animation workflow. Unity Character Animation with Mecanim is a great primer for getting to know the nuts and bolts of Mecanim and other character animation related tools in Unity. It offers you step-by-step instructions for preparing and exporting rigged models and animation sequences from commonly used 3D packages, such as Maya, 3ds Max and Blender. This book explores the new set of animation tools introduced with Mecanim in Unity. Approaching its subject matter through a typical genre–a zombie action game, character animation techniques are explored using real examples of player input and interaction, enemy behavior, and other aspects of game dynamics. As the book progresses, the reader will understand how these elements fit together in a small game development workflow. We will begin with a demonstration of the process of getting a rigged character into Unity and setting it up to use provided animation sequences. We will also consider a few industry standard 3D packages and how these can be used to rig a humanoid character for use in Unity. We will demonstrate the retargeting capabilities of Mecanim’s Humanoid Animation type by adjusting motion sequences to fit disparate character types in our game. After this, we will look at Ragdoll physics and the implementation of this commonly used technique in a Mecanim workflow. The book culminates with a thorough dissection of the enemy character AI * incorporating the Mecanim elements detailed in the previous chapters. Unity Character Animation with Mecanim will provide you with a detailed exploration of the interaction between game development and character animation, and will broaden your understanding of the rich animation toolset within Unity. Style and approach A comprehensive guide, featuring step- by- step practical tutorials using sample assets, showing you how to build fully controllable characters and non-player characters/enemies.

Unleash the power of computer vision with Python using OpenCV About This Book Create impressive applications with OpenCV and Python Familiarize yourself with advanced machine learning concepts Harness the power of computer vision with this easy-to-follow guide Who This Book Is For Intended for novices to the world of OpenCV and computer vision, as well as OpenCV veterans that want to learn about what's new in OpenCV 3, this book is useful as a reference for experts and a training manual for beginners, or for anybody who wants to familiarize themselves with the concepts of object classification and detection in simple and understandable terms. Basic knowledge about Python and programming concepts is required, although the book has an easy learning curve both from a theoretical and coding point of view. What You Will Learn Install and familiarize yourself with OpenCV 3's Python API Grasp the basics of image processing and video analysis Identify and recognize objects in images and videos Detect and recognize faces using OpenCV Train and use your own object classifiers Learn about machine learning concepts in a computer vision context Work with artificial neural networks using OpenCV Develop your own computer vision real-life application In Detail OpenCV 3 is a state-of-the-art computer vision library that allows a great variety of image and video processing operations. Some of the more spectacular and futuristic features such as face recognition or object tracking are easily achievable with OpenCV 3. Learning the basic concepts behind computer vision algorithms, models, and OpenCV's API will enable the development of all sorts of real-world applications, including security and surveillance. Starting with basic image processing operations, the book will take you through to advanced computer vision concepts. Computer vision is a rapidly evolving science whose applications in the real world are exploding, so this book will appeal to computer vision novices as well as experts of the subject wanting to learn the brand new OpenCV 3.0.0. You will build a theoretical foundation of image processing and video analysis, and progress to the concepts of classification through machine learning, acquiring the technical know-how that will allow you to create and use object detectors and classifiers, and even track objects in movies or video camera feeds. Finally, the journey will end in the world of artificial neural networks, along with the development of a hand-written digits recognition application. Style and approach This book is a comprehensive guide to the brand new OpenCV 3 with Python to develop real-life computer vision applications.

Learn how to successfully implement API management using Oracle’s API Management Solution 12c About This Book Explore the key concepts, goals, and objectives of API Management and learn how to implement it using the Oracle API Management Solution Understand the concepts and objectives of the Application Service Governance (ASG), along with the governance framework that encompasses people, processes, and technology Get to grips with API Management readiness assessments, gap analysis, digital reference architecture, and implementation roadmaps Who This Book Is For This book is for Enterprise Architects, Solution Architects, Technical Architects, and SOA and API consultants who want to successfully implement API Management using the Oracle API Management Solution products. What You Will Learn Understand how to manage a set of APIs Discover the differences and similarities between API Management and SOA Governance, and where and how these two disciplines converge into Application Services Governance (ASG) Grasp information about ASG and how to define an ASG governance framework Understand the challenges for organizations looking to expose APIs to the external world. Identify common scenarios and how to solve them Define an Oracle API management deployment topology Install and configure Oracle API Catalog (OAC), Oracle API Manager (OAPIM), and Oracle API Gateway (OAG) Learn about API sub*ions and API community management with the OAPIM portal Implement Oracle API Manager (OAPIM) including creation, publishing, management and deprecation of APIs In Detail Oracle SOA Governance is a comprehensive, service-orientated governance solution that is designed to make the transition to SOA easier. API management is the discipline that governs the software development lifecycle of APIs. It defines the tools and processes needed to build, publish and operate APIs including the management of the community of developers around it. This book illustrates how to successfully implement API Management in your organization. To achieve this, the importance of defining an API management strategy and implementation roadmap so that capabilities are implemented in the right order and timeframes is described. It starts by describing all of the fundamental concepts around API Management and related disciplines such as SOA Governance and DevOps in order to dispel the confusion surrounding these topics. The book then takes you on the journey of implementing API Management, using a realistic case study of an organization that needs an API Management solution. You will start by identifying the key business drivers to implement APIs and then create an API Management strategy and a roadmap to realize this strategy. You’ll then go through a number of use cases, each focused on addressing specific business requirements. These will help you understand each of the Oracle API Management products, how they fit into an overall architecture, and how to implement them. The book concludes by providing some tips and guidelines around defining a deployment topology for the Oracle API Management products and the steps to install them. Style and approach This book is a comprehensive guide to successfully implementing a complete API Management solution from inception to implementation. The initial chapters introduce you to Oracle SOA Governance and API Management and from there, chapters are mainly hands-on and provide a full step-by-step walkthrough of how to implement the products of the Oracle API management solution to address realistic use cases.

Gain expertise in Flask to create dynamic and powerful web applications About This Book Work with scalable Flask application structures to create complex web apps Discover the most powerful Flask extensions and learn how to create one Deploy your application to real-world platforms using this step-by-step guide Who This Book Is For If you are a Flask user who knows the basics of the library and how to create basic web pages with HTML and CSS, and you want to take your applications to the next level, this is the book for you. Harnessing the full power of Flask will allow you to create complex web applications with ease. What You Will Learn Set up a best practices Python environment Use SQLAlchemy to programmatically query a database Develop templates in Jinja Set up an MVC environment for Flask Discover NoSQL, when to use it, when not to, and how to use it Develop a custom Flask extension Use Celery to create asynchronous tasks In Detail Flask is a library that allows programmers to create web applications in Python. Flask is a micro-framework that boasts a low learning curve, a large community, and the power to create complex web apps. However, Flask is easy to learn but difficult to master. Starting from a simple Flask app, this book will walk through advanced topics while providing practical examples of the lessons learned. After building a simple Flask app, a proper app structure is demonstrated by transforming the app to use a Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture. With a scalable structure in hand, the next chapters use Flask extensions to provide extra functionality to the app, including user login and registration, NoSQL querying, a REST API, an admin interface, and more. Next, you’ll discover how to use unit testing to take the guesswork away from making sure the code is performing as it should. The book closes with a discussion of the different platforms that are available to deploy a Flask app on, the pros and cons of each one, and how to deploy on each one. Style and approach With plenty of useful examples, this guide introduces new concepts and then shows you how those concepts can be used in a real-world environment. Most sections are based around a single example app that is developed throughout the book.

Gain sharp insights into your data and solve real-world data science problems with R—from data munging to modeling and visualization About This Book Handle your data with precision and care for optimal business intelligence Restructure and transform your data to inform decision-making Packed with practical advice and tips to help you get to grips with data mining Who This Book Is For If you are a data scientist or R developer who wants to explore and optimize your use of R’s advanced features and tools, this is the book for you. A basic knowledge of R is required, along with an understanding of database logic. What You Will Learn Connect to and load data from R’s range of powerful databases Successfully fetch and parse structured and unstructured data Transform and restructure your data with efficient R packages Define and build complex statistical models with glm Develop and train machine learning algorithms Visualize social networks and graph data Deploy supervised and unsupervised classification algorithms Discover how to visualize spatial data with R In Detail R is an essential language for sharp and successful data analysis. Its numerous features and ease of use make it a powerful way of mining, managing, and interpreting large sets of data. In a world where understanding big data has become key, by mastering R you will be able to deal with your data effectively and efficiently. This book will give you the guidance you need to build and develop your knowledge and expertise. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, this book will help you to understand and use data for a competitive advantage. Beginning with taking you through essential data mining and management tasks such as munging, fetching, cleaning, and restructuring, the book then explores different model designs and the core components of effective analysis. You will then discover how to optimize your use of machine learning algorithms for classification and recommendation systems beside the traditional and more recent statistical methods. Style and approach Covering the essential tasks and skills within data science, Mastering Data Analysis provides you with solutions to the challenges of data science. Each section gives you a theoretical overview before demonstrating how to put the theory to work with real-world use cases and hands-on examples.

Left all but penniless by the death of her husband, Lady Maude Camberley is reduced to scraping a living through gambling and the generosity of Society gentlemen. So when the stupendously wealthy but conceited and cruel Prince Ahmadi of Kahriz offers her ten thousand pounds for the hand in marriage of her young beautiful daughter, Alyna, she accepts at once. Poor Alyna is utterly mortified and horrified as she finds the Prince utterly repulsive and could bear it if he touched her. Her mother will not listen to her pleas as she is frantic for the money the Prince has offered her. Alyna is so desperate that she is on the verge of suicide when a handsome Good Samaritan dissuades her on the bank of the River Thames. He is the handsome and debonair Lord Dorrington, who is instantly struck by Alyna’s plight and he then sets about protecting her from the evil Prince’s clutches. Alynda is adamant that she hates all men and will never marry, but gradually the noble good looks and gentle humour of Lord Dorrington helps to change her mind. And just as she realises that she is in love, the dastardly Prince reappears bent on revenge and she fears desperately for the life of her newfound love.

Learn shell *ing to solve complex shell-related problems and to efficiently automate your day-to-day tasks About This Book Familiarize yourself with the terminal by learning about powerful shell features Automate tasks by writing shell *s for repetitive work Packed with easy-to-follow, hands-on examples to help you write any type of shell * with confidence Who This Book Is For This book is aimed at administrators and those who have a basic knowledge of shell *ing and who want to learn how to get the most out of writing shell *s. What You Will Learn Write effective shell *s easily Perform search operations and manipulate large text data with a single shell command Modularize reusable shell *s by creating shell libraries Redirect input, output, and errors of a command or * execution to other streams Debug code with different shell debugging techniques to make your *s bug-free Manage processes, along with the environment variables needed to execute them properly Execute and embed other languages in your *s Manage creation, deletion, and search operations in files In Detail Shell *ing is a quick method to prototype complex applications or problems. Shell *s are a collection of commands to automate tasks, usually those for which the user has a repeated need, when working on Linux-based systems. Using simple commands or a combination of them in a shell can solve complex problems easily. This book starts with the basics, including essential commands that can be executed on Linux systems to perform tasks within a few nanoseconds. You’ll learn to use outputs from commands and transform them to show the data you require. Discover how to write shell *s easily, execute * files, debug, and handle errors. Next, you’ll explore environment variables in shell programming and learn how to customize them and add a new environment. Finally, the book walks you through processes and how these interact with your shell *s, along with how to use *s to automate tasks and how to embed other languages and execute them. Style and approach This book is a pragmatic guide to writing efficient shell programs, complete with hands-on examples and tips.

Build your defense against web attacks with Kali Linux 2.0 About This Book Gain a deep understanding of the flaws in web applications and exploit them in a practical manner Get hands-on web application hacking experience with a range of tools in Kali Linux 2.0 Develop the practical skills required to master multiple tools in the Kali Linux 2.0 toolkit Who This Book Is For If you are already working as a network penetration tester and want to expand your knowledge of web application hacking, then this book tailored for you. Those who are interested in learning more about the Kali Sana tools that are used to test web applications will find this book a thoroughly useful and interesting guide. What You Will Learn Set up your lab with Kali Linux 2.0 Identify the difference between hacking a web application and network hacking Understand the different techniques used to identify the flavor of web applications Expose vulnerabilities present in web servers and their applications using server-side attacks Use SQL and cross-site *ing (XSS) attacks Check for XSS flaws using the burp suite proxy Find out about the mitigation techniques used to negate the effects of the Injection and Blind SQL attacks In Detail Kali Linux 2.0 is the new generation of the industry-leading BackTrack Linux penetration testing and security auditing Linux distribution. It contains several hundred tools aimed at various information security tasks such as penetration testing, forensics, and reverse engineering. At the beginning of the book, you will be introduced to the concepts of hacking and penetration testing and will get to know about the tools used in Kali Linux 2.0 that relate to web application hacking. Then, you will gain a deep understanding of SQL and command injection flaws and ways to exploit the flaws. Moving on, you will get to know more about *ing and input validation flaws, AJAX, and the security issues related to AJAX. At the end of the book, you will use an automated technique called fuzzing to be able to identify flaws in a web application. Finally, you will understand the web application vulnerabilities and the ways in which they can be exploited using the tools in Kali Linux 2.0. Style and approach This step-by-step guide covers each topic with detailed practical examples. Every concept is explained with the help of illustrations using the tools available in Kali Linux 2.0.

Over 100 recipes to help you develop cross-platform, native applications in JavaScript About This Book Leverage your JavaScript skills to write mobile applications using Titanium Studio tools with the native advantage Deploy your application on the App Store and Google Play Add your own IOS native modules in objective-C, in an easy-to-follow step-by-step format Who This Book Is For This book is an essential for any developer learning or using JavaScript who wants to write native UI applications for iOS and Android. No knowledge of Objective-C, Swift and Java is required and you’ll quickly be developing native, cross-platform apps, in JavaScript! What You Will Learn Transfer data between applications with URL schemes, and make your application accessible to other mobile applications and services Connect with remote services using JSON Work with Google Maps and Apple Maps, GPS and annotate routes Create animations and special effects Integrate notifications and connect with social media services such as Facebook and Twitter Build applications with Alloy MVC – a rapid application development framework Design native APIs and use local databases In Detail The mobile web has paved the way but many users want to have “native” applications installed. Using Appcelerator as a platform it’s now possible to write iOS, Android, and Windows phone applications in JavaScript! It allows developers to develop fully native UI applications using Appcelerator studio tools without any knowledge of Objective-C, Swift or Java. This book will take you through the process of building cross-platform, native UI applications for the mobile from scratch. You will learn how to develop apps, how to use GPS, cameras and photos and how to build socially connected apps. You will also learn how to package them for submission to the App Store and Google Play. This cookbook takes a pragmatic approach to creating applications in JavaScript from putting together basic UIs, to handling events and implementation of third party services such as Twitter, Facebook and Push notifications. The book shows you how to integrate datasources and server APIs, and how to use local databases. The topics covered will guide you to use Appcelerator Studio tools for all the mobile features such as Geolocation, Accelerometer, animation and more. You’ll also learn about Alloy, the Appcelerator MVC framework for rapid app development, and how to transfer data between applications using URLSchemes, enabling other developers to access and launch specific parts of your app. Finally, you will learn how to register developer accounts and publish your very own applications on the App Store and Google Play. Style and approach This book offers a set of practical recipes with a step-by-step approach for building native applications for both the iOS and Android using JavaScript. This hands-on guide shows you exactly how to use the Appcelerator platform to rapidly develop cross-platform, native apps.

Control your machine learning algorithms using test-driven development to achieve quantifiable milestones About This Book Build smart extensions to pre-existing features at work that can help maximize their value Quantify your models to drive real improvement Take your knowledge of basic concepts, such as linear regression and Na?ve Bayes classification, to the next level and productionalize their models Play what-if games with your models and techniques by following the test-driven exploration process Who This Book Is For This book is intended for data technologists (scientists, analysts, or developers) with previous machine learning experience who are also comfortable reading code in Python. You may be starting, or have already started, a machine learning project at work and are looking for a way to deliver results quickly to enable rapid iteration and improvement. Those looking for examples of how to isolate issues in models and improve them will find ideas in this book to move forward. What You Will Learn Get started with an introduction to test-driven development and familiarize yourself with how to apply these concepts to machine learning Build and test a neural network deterministically, and learn to look for niche cases that cause odd model behaviour Learn to use the multi-armed bandit algorithm to make optimal choices in the face of an enormous amount of uncertainty Generate complex and simple random data to create a wide variety of test cases that can be codified into tests Develop models iteratively, even when using a third-party library Quantify model quality to enable collaboration and rapid iteration Adopt simpler approaches to common machine learning algorithms Take behaviour-driven development principles to articulate test intent In Detail Machine learning is the process of teaching machines to remember data patterns, using them to predict future outcomes, and offering choices that would appeal to individuals based on their past preferences. Machine learning is applicable to a lot of what you do every day. As a result, you can’t take forever to deliver your first iteration of software. Learning to build machine learning algorithms within a controlled test framework will speed up your time to deliver, quantify quality expectations with your clients, and enable rapid iteration and collaboration. This book will show you how to quantifiably test machine learning algorithms. The very different, foundational approach of this book starts every example algorithm with the simplest thing that could possibly work. With this approach, seasoned veterans will find simpler approaches to beginning a machine learning algorithm. You will learn how to iterate on these algorithms to enable rapid delivery and improve performance expectations. The book begins with an introduction to test driving machine learning and quantifying model quality. From there, you will test a neural network, predict values with regression, and build upon regression techniques with logistic regression. You will discover how to test different approaches to na?ve bayes and compare them quantitatively, along with how to apply OOP (Object-Oriented Programming) and OOP patterns to test-driven code, leveraging SciKit-Learn. Finally, you will walk through the development of an algorithm which maximizes the expected value of profit for a marketing campaign by combining one of the classifiers covered with the multiple regression example in the book. Style and approach An example-driven guide that builds a deeper knowledge and understanding of iterative machine learning development, test by test. Each topic develops solutions using failing tests to illustrate problems; these are followed by steps to pass the tests, simply and straightforwardly. Topics which use generated data explore how the data was generated, alongside explanations of the assumptions behind different machine learning techniques.

A guide to everything an Oracle SOA Suite 12c administrator needs to hit the ground running About This Book Understand core administrative tasks such as deployments, purging, startup and shutdown, configuration, and backup and recovery Manage, monitor, and troubleshoot SOA composites and OSB services Follow step-by-step instructions to easily and quickly install a highly available two-node cluster Who This Book Is For With topic areas ranging from the simple to the complex, this book is intended for novice, mid-level, and experienced administrators of the Oracle SOA Suite 12c platform as well as Oracle WebLogic Server and Oracle Database administrators interested in diving into the product. What You Will Learn Navigate Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control Monitor and manage the Oracle SOA Suite 12 c infrastructure Deploy and promote code Monitor and manage services Configure and administer the environment Manage the dehydration store and enterprise scheduler service Troubleshoot Oracle SOA Suite 12c infrastructure Set up backups, recovery, and high availability In Detail Oracle SOA Suite 12 c is the most comprehensive and integrated infrastructure on the market today that is used for building applications based on service-oriented architecture. With the vast number of features and capabilities that Oracle SOA Suite 12c has to offer comes numerous complexities and challenges for administration. Oracle SOA Suite 12c Administrator's Guide covers all the core areas of administration needed for you to effectively manage and monitor the Oracle SOA Suite environment and its transactions, from deployments, to monitoring, to performance tuning, and much, much more. Manage, monitor, and troubleshoot SOA composites and OSB services from a single product set. Understand core administrative activities such as deployments, purging, startup and shutdown, configuration, backup, and recovery. Also learn about new features such as Oracle Enterprise Scheduler, lazy loading, work manager groups, high availability, and more. Style and approach Presented in a reference guide format where chapters can be read in any sequence, this book explains the core concepts while providing real-world implementation specifics, detailing the what, why, and how of all the administration-related activities that involve Oracle SOA Suite 12c. We take a step-by-step approach and offers tips, instructions, and examples that you can easily follow and execute.

Illustrate your data in a more interactive and interesting way using Tableau Public About This Book Learn the basics of creating visualizations with Tableau using this concise reference book Understand how to join and aggregate your data sources using Tableau It is a step by step guide that uses examples to help you understand the key concepts and feature of Tableau Public Who This Book Is For This book is targeted at investigative journalists and bloggers with an interest in making rich and interactive data visualizations. Intermediate Tableau Public users and organizations can also use this book as a reference guide and teaching aid. Members of the media team, such as data specialists, web developers, editors, producers, and managers can also benefit from an understanding of the structure and challenges of writing an interactive and interesting data visualization using Tableau Public. What You Will Learn Connect to various data sources and understand what data is appropriate for Tableau Public Understand chart types and when to use specific chart types with different types of data Join and aggregate data for use in Tableau Public data stories Discover features of Tableau Public, from basic to advanced Involve calculations in Tableau Public Build geographic maps to bring context to data Create dashboards from one or more separate data visualizations Create filters and actions to allow greater interactivity to Tableau Public visualizations and dashboards Publish and embed Tableau visualizations and dashboards in articles In Detail Tableau Public is a very useful tool in anyone's data reporting toolbox that allows authors to add an interactive data element to any article. It allows investigative journalists and bloggers to tell a “data story”, allowing others to explore your data visualization. The relative ease of Tableau Public visualization creation allows data stories to be developed rapidly. It allows readers to explore data associations in multiple-sourced public data, and uses state-of-the-art dashboard and chart graphics to immerse the users in an interactive experience. This book offers investigative journalists, bloggers, and other data story tellers a rich discussion of visualization creation topics, features, and functions. This book allows data story tellers to quickly gain confidence in understanding and expanding their visualization-creation knowledge, and allows them to quickly create interesting, interactive data visualizations to bring a richness and vibrancy to complex articles. The book takes you from basic concepts in visualization creation, like connecting to data sources, cleansing data, chart types, common functions, map creation, and publishing to the Web, to more advanced functions. It is a great overview and reference guide for beginner to intermediate Tableau Public data story tellers, and covers creation of Tableau Public visualizations of varying complexities. Style and approach This book is a crisp, systematic, and tutorial-styled guide to building interactive Tableau visualizations.

Learn how to build a complete 3D game using the industry-leading Unity game development engine and Blender, the graphics software that gives life to your ideas About This Book Learn the fundamentals of two powerful tools and put the concepts into practice Find out how to designand buildall the core elements required for a great game - from characters to environments, to props— Learn how to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) into your game for sophisticated and engaging gameplay Who This Book Is For This book has been created for anyone who wants to learn how to develop their own game using Blender and Unity, both of which are freely available, yet very popular and powerful, tools. Not only will you be able to master the tools, but you will also learn the entire process of creating a game from the ground up. What You Will Learn Design and create a game concept that will determine how your game will look and how it will be played Construct 3D models of your game characters and create animations for them before importing them into the game Build the game environment from scratch by constructing the terrain and props, and eventually put it all together to form a scene Import and integrate game assets created in Blender into Unity—for example, setting up textures, materials, animation states, and prefabs Develop game structures including a game flow, user interface diagram, game logic, and a state machine Make the game characters move around and perform certain actions either through player inputs or fully controlled by artificial intelligence Create particles and visual effects to enhance the overall visual aesthetic Deploy the game for various types of platforms In Detail In the wake of the indie game development scene, game development tools are no longer luxury items costing up to millions of dollars but are now affordable by smaller teams or even individual developers. Among these cutting-edge applications, Blender and Unity stand out from the crowd as a powerful combination that allows small-to-no budget indie developers or hobbyists alike to develop games that they have always dreamt of creating. Starting from the beginning, this book will cover designing the game concept, constructing the gameplay, creating the characters and environment, implementing game logic and basic artificial intelligence, and finally deploying the game for others to play. By sequentially working through the steps in each chapter, you will quickly master the skills required to develop your dream game from scratch. Style and approach A step-by-step approach with tons of screenshots and sample code for readers to follow and learn from. Each topic is explained sequentially and placed in context so that readers can get a better understanding of every step in the process of creating a fully functional game.

Master the fundamentals of malware analysis for the Windows platform and enhance your anti-malware skill set About This Book Set the baseline towards performing malware analysis on the Windows platform and how to use the tools required to deal with malware Understand how to decipher x86 assembly code from source code inside your favourite development environment A step-by-step based guide that reveals malware analysis from an industry insider and demystifies the process Who This Book Is For This book is best for someone who has prior experience with reverse engineering Windows executables and wants to specialize in malware analysis. The book presents the malware analysis thought process using a show-and-tell approach, and the examples included will give any analyst confidence in how to approach this task on their own the next time around. What You Will Learn Use the positional number system for clear conception of Boolean algebra, that applies to malware research purposes Get introduced to static and dynamic analysis methodologies and build your own malware lab Analyse destructive malware samples from the real world (ITW) from fingerprinting and static/dynamic analysis to the final debrief Understand different modes of linking and how to compile your own libraries from assembly code and integrate the codein your final program Get to know about the various emulators, debuggers and their features, and sandboxes and set them up effectively depending on the required scenario Deal with other malware vectors such as pdf and MS-Office based malware as well as *s and shellcode In Detail Windows OS is the most used operating system in the world and hence is targeted by malware writers. There are strong ramifications if things go awry. Things will go wrong if they can, and hence we see a salvo of attacks that have continued to disrupt the normal scheme of things in our day to day lives. This book will guide you on how to use essential tools such as debuggers, disassemblers, and sandboxes to dissect malware samples. It will expose your innards and then build a report of their indicators of compromise along with detection rule sets that will enable you to help contain the outbreak when faced with such a situation. We will start with the basics of computing fundamentals such as number systems and Boolean algebra. Further, you'll learn about x86 assembly programming and its integration with high level languages such as C++.You'll understand how to decipher disassembly code obtained from the compiled source code and map it back to its original design goals. By delving into end to end analysis with real-world malware samples to solidify your understanding, you'll sharpen your technique of handling destructive malware binaries and vector mechanisms. You will also be encouraged to consider analysis lab safety measures so that there is no infection in the process. Finally, we'll have a rounded tour of various emulations, sandboxing, and debugging options so that you know what is at your disposal when you need a specific kind of weapon in order to nullify the malware. Style and approach An easy to follow, hands-on guide with de*ions and screenshots that will help you execute effective malicious software investigations and conjure up solutions creatively and confidently.

Statistics, big data, and machine learning for Clojure programmers About This Book Write code using Clojure to harness the power of your data Discover the libraries and frameworks that will help you succeed A practical guide to understanding how the Clojure programming language can be used to derive insights from data Who This Book Is For This book is aimed at developers who are already productive in Clojure but who are overwhelmed by the breadth and depth of understanding required to be effective in the field of data science. Whether you’re tasked with delivering a specific analytics project or simply suspect that you could be deriving more value from your data, this book will inspire you with the opportunities–and inform you of the risks–that exist in data of all shapes and sizes. What You Will Learn Perform hypothesis testing and understand feature selection and statistical significance to interpret your results with confidence Implement the core machine learning techniques of regression, classification, clustering and recommendation Understand the importance of the value of simple statistics and distributions in exploratory data analysis Scale algorithms to web-sized datasets efficiently using distributed programming models on Hadoop and Spark Apply suitable analytic approaches for text, graph, and time series data Interpret the terminology that you will encounter in technical papers Import libraries from other JVM languages such as Java and Scala Communicate your findings clearly and convincingly to nontechnical colleagues In Detail The term “data science” has been widely used to define this new profession that is expected to interpret vast datasets and translate them to improved decision-making and performance. Clojure is a powerful language that combines the interactivity of a *ing language with the speed of a compiled language. Together with its rich ecosystem of native libraries and an extremely simple and consistent functional approach to data manipulation, which maps closely to mathematical formula, it is an ideal, practical, and flexible language to meet a data scientist’s diverse needs. Taking you on a journey from simple summary statistics to sophisticated machine learning algorithms, this book shows how the Clojure programming language can be used to derive insights from data. Data scientists often forge a novel path, and you’ll see how to make use of Clojure’s Java interoperability capabilities to access libraries such as Mahout and Mllib for which Clojure wrappers don’t yet exist. Even seasoned Clojure developers will develop a deeper appreciation for their language’s flexibility! You’ll learn how to apply statistical thinking to your own data and use Clojure to explore, analyze, and visualize it in a technically and statistically robust way. You can also use Incanter for local data processing and ClojureScript to present interactive visualisations and understand how distributed platforms such as Hadoop sand Spark’s MapReduce and GraphX’s BSP solve the challenges of data analysis at scale, and how to explain algorithms using those programming models. Above all, by following the explanations in this book, you’ll learn not just how to be effective using the current state-of-the-art methods in data science, but why such methods work so that you can continue to be productive as the field evolves into the future. Style and approach This is a practical guide to data science that teaches theory by example through the libraries and frameworks accessible from the Clojure programming language.

Use PhoneGap to build cross-platform mobile applications quickly and efficiently About This Book Build native mobile phone applications with HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS Incorporate smartphone capabilities such as GPS, camera, accelerometer, and more into your apps for any mobile platform Use Cordova view to embed PhoneGap into native applications to either transit smoothly to PhoneGap or incorporate PhoneGap functionalities Who This Book Is For If you are a mobile application developer in iOS or Android, or a web application developer who wants to learn how to make cross-platform mobile applications using PhoneGap, this book is perfect for you. To make the most of this book, it will be helpful if you have prior knowledge of HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. What You Will Learn Get to grips with the fundamentals of PhoneGap to get started Set up a development environment for Linux, Mac OS, and Windows Use Cordova CLI, workflows, and Plugman Plugin manager to create mobile applications efficiently Understand the development workflow to create native cross-platform mobile applications Embed plugin support to transition to PhoneGap or use it to enhance existing applications Improve your mobile development knowledge using object-oriented programming (OOP), reusable components, and AJAX closures Be empowered to build your own mobile apps quickly with ease Discover tips and tricks to make app development fun and easy In Detail PhoneGap is an open source framework that allows you to quickly build cross-platform mobile apps using HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS. PhoneGap Build is a cloud service that allows you to quickly develop and compile mobile applications without SDKs, compilers, and hardware. PhoneGap allows you to use its existing plugins or create new ones, as per your requirements, to enhance your mobile applications. Starting by installing PhoneGap, you’ll develop an app that uses various device capabilities through different plugins and learn how to build an app in the cloud with PhoneGap’s Build service. You’ll discover how to use PhoneGap to create an application view, along with how to use a camera, geolocation, and other device capabilities to create engaging apps. Next, you’ll augment applications with PhoneGap's plugins using minimalistic code. You’ll explore the app preparation process to deploy your app to the app store. By the end of the book, you’ll have also learned how to apply hybrid mobile UIs that will work across different platforms and different screen sizes for better user experience. Style and approach This is an example-based, fast-paced guide that covers the fundamentals of creating cross-platform mobile applications with PhoneGap.

Harness the power of Redis to integrate and manage your projects efficiently About This Book Learn how to use Redis's data types efficiently to manage large data sets Scale Redis to multiple servers with Twemproxy, Redis Sentinel, and Redis Cluster A fast-paced guide, full of real-world examples to help you get the best out of the features offered by Redis Who This Book Is For If you are a competent developer with experience of working with data structure servers and want to boost your project's performance by learning about features of Redis, then this book is for you. What You Will Learn Build analytics applications using Bitmaps and Hyperloglogs Enhance scalability with Twemproxy, Redis Sentinel, and Redis Cluster Build a Time Series implementation in Node.js and Redis Create your own Redis commands by extending Redis with Lua Get to know security techniques to protect your data (SSL encryption, firewall rules, basic authorization) Persist data to disk and learn the trade-offs of AOF and RDB Understand how to use Node.js, PHP, Python, and Ruby clients for Redis Avoid common pitfalls when designing your next solution In Detail Redis is the most popular in-memory key-value data store. It’s very lightweight and its data types give it an edge over the other competitors. If you need an in-memory database or a high-performance cache system that is simple to use and highly scalable, Redis is what you need. Redis Essentials is a fast-paced guide that teaches the fundamentals on data types, explains how to manage data through commands, and shares experiences from big players in the industry. We start off by explaining the basics of Redis followed by the various data types such as Strings, hashes, lists, and more. Next, Common pitfalls for various scenarios are described, followed by solutions to ensure you do not fall into common traps. After this, major differences between client implementations in PHP, Python, and Ruby are presented. Next, you will learn how to extend Redis with Lua, get to know security techniques such as basic authorization, firewall rules, and SSL encryption, and discover how to use Twemproxy, Redis Sentinel, and Redis Cluster to scale infrastructures horizontally. At the end of this book, you will be able to utilize all the essential features of Redis to optimize your project's performance. Style and approach A practical guide that offers the foundation upon which you can begin to understand the capabilities of Redis using a step-by-step approach. This book is full of real-world problems and in-depth knowledge of the concepts and features of Redis, with plenty of examples.

Build, process and analyze large-scale graph data effectively with Spark About This Book Find solutions for every stage of data processing from loading and transforming graph data to Improve the scalability of your graphs with a variety of real-world applications with complete Scala code. A concise guide to processing large-scale networks with Apache Spark. Who This Book Is For This book is for data scientists and big data developers who want to learn the processing and analyzing graph datasets at scale. Basic programming experience with Scala is assumed. Basic knowledge of Spark is assumed. What You Will Learn Write, build and deploy Spark applications with the Scala Build Tool. Build and analyze large-scale network datasets Analyze and transform graphs using RDD and graph-specific operations Implement new custom graph operations tailored to specific needs. Develop iterative and efficient graph algorithms using message aggregation and Pregel abstraction Extract subgraphs and use it to discover common clusters Analyze graph data and solve various data science problems using real-world datasets. In Detail Apache Spark is the next standard of open-source cluster-computing engine for processing big data. Many practical computing problems concern large graphs, like the Web graph and various social networks. The scale of these graphs - in some cases billions of vertices, trillions of edges - poses challenges to their efficient processing. Apache Spark GraphX API combines the advantages of both data-parallel and graph-parallel systems by efficiently expressing graph computation within the Spark data-parallel framework. This book will teach the user to do graphical programming in Apache Spark, apart from an explanation of the entire process of graphical data analysis. You will journey through the creation of graphs, its uses, its exploration and analysis and finally will also cover the conversion of graph elements into graph structures. This book begins with an introduction of the Spark system, its libraries and the Scala Build Tool. Using a hands-on approach, this book will quickly teach you how to install and leverage Spark interactively on the command line and in a standalone Scala program. Then, it presents all the methods for building Spark graphs using illustrative network datasets. Next, it will walk you through the process of exploring, visualizing and analyzing different network characteristics. This book will also teach you how to transform raw datasets into a usable form. In addition, you will learn powerful operations that can be used to transform graph elements and graph structures. Furthermore, this book also teaches how to create custom graph operations that are tailored for specific needs with efficiency in mind. The later chapters of this book cover more advanced topics such as clustering graphs, implementing graph-parallel iterative algorithms and learning methods from graph data. Style and approach A step-by-step guide that will walk you through the key ideas and techniques for processing big graph data at scale, with practical examples that will ensure an overall understanding of the concepts of Spark.

Unlock deeper insights into Machine Leaning with this vital guide to cutting-edge predictive analytics About This Book Leverage Python’s most powerful open-source libraries for deep learning, data wrangling, and data visualization Learn effective strategies and best practices to improve and optimize machine learning systems and algorithms Ask – and answer – tough questions of your data with robust statistical models, built for a range of datasets Who This Book Is For If you want to find out how to use Python to start answering critical questions of your data, pick up Python Machine Learning – whether you want to get started from scratch or want to extend your data science knowledge, this is an essential and unmissable resource. What You Will Learn Explore how to use different machine learning models to ask different questions of your data Learn how to build neural networks using Keras and Theano Find out how to write clean and elegant Python code that will optimize the strength of your algorithms Discover how to embed your machine learning model in a web application for increased accessibility Predict continuous target outcomes using regression analysis Uncover hidden patterns and structures in data with clustering Organize data using effective pre-processing techniques Get to grips with sentiment analysis to delve deeper into textual and social media data In Detail Machine learning and predictive analytics are transforming the way businesses and other organizations operate. Being able to understand trends and patterns in complex data is critical to success, becoming one of the key strategies for unlocking growth in a challenging contemporary marketplace. Python can help you deliver key insights into your data – its unique capabilities as a language let you build sophisticated algorithms and statistical models that can reveal new perspectives and answer key questions that are vital for success. Python Machine Learning gives you access to the world of predictive analytics and demonstrates why Python is one of the world’s leading data science languages. If you want to ask better questions of data, or need to improve and extend the capabilities of your machine learning systems, this practical data science book is invaluable. Covering a wide range of powerful Python libraries, including scikit-learn, Theano, and Keras, and featuring guidance and tips on everything from sentiment analysis to neural networks, you’ll soon be able to answer some of the most important questions facing you and your organization. Style and approach Python Machine Learning connects the fundamental theoretical principles behind machine learning to their practical application in a way that focuses you on asking and answering the right questions. It walks you through the key elements of Python and its powerful machine learning libraries, while demonstrating how to get to grips with a range of statistical models.

Move beyond basic games and explore the limits of AndEngine About This Book Extend the basic AndEngine features without modifying any of AndEngine's code Understand advanced technologies and gain the skills to create the ultimate games in AndEngine Theory supported with practical examples to stimulate your imagination and creativity Who This Book Is For This book is aimed at developers who have gone through all the basic AndEngine tutorials and books, and are looking for something more. It's also very suitable for developers with knowledge of other game engines who are looking to develop with AndEngine. Knowledge of Java, C++ and Android development are a prerequisite for getting the most out of this book. What You Will Learn Extend AndEngine to use and render 3D models Integrate and use various physics engines with AndEngine Advanced animations and their implementation in AndEngine Lighting theory and its application for both 2D and 3D objects Using skeletal animation with AndEngine Use GLSL shaders with AndEngine for effects and anti-aliasing Add sounds and effects to AndEngine using both basic and 3D audio libraries Efficient network implementations with AndEngine for multi-players In Detail AndEngine is a popular and easy-to-use game framework, best suited for Android game development. After learning the basics of creating an Android game using AndEngine it's time you move beyond the basics to explore further. For this you need to understand the theory behind many of the technologies AndEngine uses. This book aims to provide all the skills and tools you need to learn more about Android game development using AndEngine. With this book you will get a quick overview of the basics of AndEngine and Android application development. From there, you will learn how to use 3D models in a 2D scene, render a visual representation of a scene's objects, and create interaction between these objects. You will explore frame-based animations and learn to use skeletal animations. As the book progresses, you will be guided through exploring all the relevant aspects of rendering graphics with OpenGL ES, generating audio using OpenSL ES and OpenAL, making the best use of Android's network API, implementing anti-aliasing algorithms, shaders, dynamic lighting and much more. With all this, you will be ready to enhance the look and feel of your game with its user interface, sound effects and background music. After an in-depth study of 2D and 3D worlds and multi-player implementations, you will be a master in AndEngine and Android game development. Style and approach This book takes an in-depth tour of the many aspects of Android game development with the use of AndEngine. Each topic is covered extensively to act both as a practical guide as well as a reference.