Against a backdrop of the clash of the Roman and Carthaginian empires, the battle for sovereignty takes place on the high seas Atticus, captain of one of the ships of Rome's small, coastal fleet, is from a Greek fishing family. Septimus, legionary commander, reluctantly ordered aboard ship, is from Rome, born into a traditionally army family. It could never be an easy alliance. But the arrival of a hostile fleet, larger, far more skilful and more powerful than any Atticus has encountered before, forces them to act together. So Atticus, one of Rome's few experienced sailors, finds himself propelled into the middle of a political struggle that is completely foreign to him. Rome need to build a navy fast but the obstacles are many; political animosities, legions adamant that they will only use their traditional methods; Roman prejudice even from friends, that all those not born in Rome are inferior citizens. The enemy are first class, experienced and determined to control the seas. Can Atticus, and the fledgling Roman navy, staffed with inexperienced sailors and unwilling legionaries, outwit and outfight his opponents. SHIP OF ROME, full of magnificent sea-battles, packed with strong characters, torn between two powerful empires, is the first book in a new series, MASTERS OF THE SEA, by a brilliant new author.

An elegant, powerful novel, set in Victorian England, a time not so different from our own… perfect for fans of THE INTERPRETATION OF MURDER and THE SHADOW OF THE WIND Ambitious young journalist Thomas Kitson arrives at the battlefields of the Crimea as the London Courier’s man on the ground. It is a dangerous place, full of the worst horrors of war but Kitson is determined to make his mark. Under the tutelage of his hard-bitten Irish boss Cracknell, and assisted by artist Robert Styles, he sets about exposing the incompetence of the army generals. Two years later, as Sebastopol burns, Thomas returns to England under mysterious circumstances. Desperate to forget the atrocities of the Crimea, he takes a job as a ‘street philosopher’, a society writer reporting on the gossip of the day. But on the eve of the great Art Treasures Exhibition, as Manchester prepares to welcome Queen Victoria, Thomas’s past returns to haunt him in the most horrifying way…

Build optimized applications in Kotlin by learning how to make use of the standard library features the smart way Key Features *Get the most out of the Kotlin library to develop high-quality portable applications *Explore the powerful support for data processing and I/O operations *Discover ways to enhance your Android application development Book Description Given the verbosity of Java, developers have turned to Kotlin for effective software development. The Kotlin standard library provides vital tools that make day-to-day Kotlin programming easier. This library features the core attributes of the language, such as algorithmic problems, design patterns, data processing, and working with files and data streams. The recipes in this book offer coding solutions that can be readily executed. The book covers various topics related to data processing, I/O operations, and collections transformation. We'll walk through effective design patterns in Kotlin and you'll understand how coroutines add new features to JavaScript. As you make your way through the chapters, you'll learn how to implement clean, reusable functions and scalable interfaces containing default implementations. In the concluding chapters, we'll provide recipes on functional programming concepts, such as lambdas, monads, functors, and Kotlin scoping functions. By the end of the book, you'll be able to address a range of problems that Kotlin developers face by implementing easy-to-follow solutions. What you will learn *Work with ranges, progressions, and sequences in use cases *Add new functionalities to current classes with Kotlin extensions *Understand elements such as lambdas, closures, and monads *Build a REST API consumer with Retrofit and a coroutine adapter *Discover useful tips and solutions for making your Android projects *Explore the benefits of standard library features Who this book is for This book is for software developers who are familiar with Kotlin’s basics and want to discover more advanced features and concepts, especially those provided by the Kotlin standard library. It’s also ideal for experienced software developers who are familiar with the functional programming paradigm and other programming languages who want to switch to Kotlin. It will also help Java developers switch to Kotlin and integrate it into existing Java Virtual Machine (JVM) projects.

Make web applications run faster by using advanced PHP, SQL and JavaScript techniques About This Book ? Use a customized PHP stack to create efficient data-driven web applications ? Ensure seamless implementation of a JavaScript & HTML 5 CSS based frontend and PHP based backend. ? Learn about problem identification, best strategies, and UI design patterns as well to build a clean, fast web application Who This Book Is For The audience for this book would be PHP developers who have some basic knowledge of PHP programming and Web technologies. JavaScript programming knowledge is not necessary. What You Will Learn ? Install, confgure, and use profling and benchmarking testing tools ? Understand how to recognize optimizable data structures and functions to effectively optimize a PHP7 application ? Diagnose bad SQL query performance and discover ways to optimize it ? Grasp modern SQL techniques to optimize complex SQL queries ? Identify and simplify overly complex JavaScript code ? Explore and implement UI design principles that effectively enhance the performance ? Combine web technologies to boost web server performance In Detail This book will get you started with the latest benchmarking, profiling and monitoring tools for PHP, MySQL and JavaScript using Docker-based technologies. From optimizing PHP 7 code to learning asynchronous programming, from implementing Modern SQL solutions to discovering Functional JavaScript techniques, this book covers all the latest developments in Faster Web technologies. You will not only learn to determine the best optimization strategies, but also how to implement them. Along the way, you will learn how to profile your PHP scripts with Blackfire.io, monitor your Web applications, measure database performance, optimize SQL queries, explore Functional JavaScript, boost Web server performance in general and optimize applications when there is nothing left to optimize by going beyond performance. After reading this book, you will know how to boost the performance of any Web application and make it part of what has come to be known as the Faster Web. Style and approach The book has a step by step practical approach to developing highly efficient Web applications, with many practical and useful code snippets.

Develop rich and scalable web applications with Node.js, Express.js, and MongoDB About This Book ? Learn the advanced features of Aurelia to build responsive web applications ? Write clean, modular, and testable code that will be easy to maintain and evolve ? Harness the power of JavaScript on the client and server side to build full-stack applications Who This Book Is For Hands-On Full Stack Web Development with Aurelia is for you if you are a web or full-stack JavaScript developer who has experience with traditional stacks such as LAMP, MEAN, or MERN and wish to explore the power of Aurelia and new stack with modern web technologies. What You Will Learn ? Employ best practices and modern approaches to create frontend applications ? Learn about modern CSS preprocessors and improve the readability of your application ? Use the Aurelia framework to create navigable web applications ? Write your own tests, making your application secure and fault-tolerant ? Create solid RESTful APIs using the microservice architecture ? Understand the NoSQL paradigm and get the best performance from your database ? Integrate third-party libraries such as Gmail for Single Sign On ? Write UI testing scripts and integration tests to build extensible apps In Detail Hands-On Full Stack Web Development with Aurelia begins with a review of basic JavaScript concepts and the structure of an Aurelia application generated with the Aurelia-CLI tool. You will learn how to create interesting and intuitive application using the Aurelia-Materialize plugin, which implements the material design approach. Once you fully configure a FIFA World Cup 2018 app, you'll start creating the initial components through TDD practices and then develop backend services to process and store all the user data. This book lets you explore the NoSQL model and implement it using one of the most popular NoSQL databases, MongoDB, with some exciting libraries to make the experience effortless. You'll also be able to add some advanced behavior to your components, from managing the lifecycle properly to using dynamic binding, field validations, and the custom service layer. You will integrate your application with Google OAuth Service and learn best practices to secure your applications. Furthermore, you'll write UI Testing scripts to create high-quality Aurelia Apps and explore the most used tools to run end-to-end tests. In the concluding chapters, you'll be able to deploy your application to the Cloud and Docker containers. By the end of this book, you will have learned how to create rich applications using best practices and modern approaches. Style and approach This is a comprehensive example-based book that guides you to create highly scalable applications using the new MEAN Stack.

Make the most of Kotlin by leveraging design patterns and best practices to build scalable and high performing apps About This Book ? Understand traditional GOF design patterns to apply generic solutions ? Shift from OOP to FP; covering reactive and concurrent patterns in a step-by-step manner ? Choose the best microservices architecture and MVC for your development environment Who This Book Is For This book is for developers who would like to master design patterns with Kotlin to build efficient and scalable applications. Basic Java or Kotlin programming knowledge is assumed What You Will Learn ? Get to grips with Kotlin principles, including its strengths and weaknesses ? Understand classical design patterns in Kotlin ? Explore functional programming using built-in features of Kotlin ? Solve real-world problems using reactive and concurrent design patterns ? Use threads and coroutines to simplify concurrent code flow ? Understand antipatterns to write clean Kotlin code, avoiding common pitfalls ? Learn about the design considerations necessary while choosing between architectures In Detail Design patterns enable you as a developer to speed up the development process by providing you with proven development paradigms. Reusing design patterns helps prevent complex issues that can cause major problems, improves your code base, promotes code reuse, and makes an architecture more robust. The mission of this book is to ease the adoption of design patterns in Kotlin and provide good practices for programmers. The book begins by showing you the practical aspects of smarter coding in Kotlin, explaining the basic Kotlin syntax and the impact of design patterns. From there, the book provides an in-depth explanation of the classical design patterns of creational, structural, and behavioral families, before heading into functional programming. It then takes you through reactive and concurrent patterns, teaching you about using streams, threads, and coroutines to write better code along the way By the end of the book, you will be able to efficiently address common problems faced while developing applications and be comfortable working on scalable and maintainable projects of any size. Style and approach This book explains design patterns in a step-by-step manner with clear and concise code examples

Get a solid understanding of Java fundamentals to master programming through a series of practical steps About This Book ? Enjoy your first step into the world of programming ? Understand what a language is and use its features to build applications ? Learn about a wide variety of programming applications Who This Book Is For Introduction to Programming is for anybody who wants to learn programming. All you’ll need is a computer, internet connection, and a cup of coffee. What You Will Learn ? Understand what Java is ? Install Java and learn how to run it ? Write and execute a Java program ? Write and execute the test for your program ? Install components and confgure your development environment ? Learn and use Java language fundamentals ? Learn object-oriented design principles ? Master the frequently used Java constructs In Detail Have you ever thought about making your computer do what you want it to do? Do you want to learn to program, but just don't know where to start? Instead of guiding you in the right direction, have other learning resources got you confused with over-explanations? Don't worry. Look no further. Introduction to Programming is here to help. Written by an industry expert who understands the challenges faced by those from a non-programming background, this book takes a gentle, hand-holding approach to introducing you to the world of programming. Beginning with an introduction to what programming is, you'll go on to learn about languages, their syntax, and development environments. With plenty of examples for you to code alongside reading, the book's practical approach will help you to grasp everything it has to offer. More importantly, you'll understand several aspects of application development. As a result, you'll have your very own application running by the end of the book. To help you comprehensively understand Java programming, there are exercises at the end of each chapter to keep things interesting and encourage you to add your own personal touch to the code and, ultimately, your application. Style and approach This step-by-step guide will familiarize you with programming using some practical examples.

Learn how to create interactive and visually aesthetic plots using the Bokeh package in Python About This Book ? A step by step approach to creating interactive plots with Bokeh ? Go from nstallation all the way to deploying your very own Bokeh application ? Work with a real time datasets to practice and create your very own plots and applications Who This Book Is For This book is well suited for data scientists and data analysts who want to perform interactive data visualization on their web browsers using Bokeh. Some exposure to Python programming will be helpful, but prior experience with Bokeh is not required. What You Will Learn ? Installing Bokeh and understanding its key concepts ? Creating plots using glyphs, the fundamental building blocks of Bokeh ? Creating plots using different data structures like NumPy and Pandas ? Using layouts and widgets to visually enhance your plots and add a layer of interactivity ? Building and hosting applications on the Bokeh server ? Creating advanced plots using spatial data In Detail Adding a layer of interactivity to your plots and converting these plots into applications hold immense value in the field of data science. The standard approach to adding interactivity would be to use paid software such as Tableau, but the Bokeh package in Python offers users a way to create both interactive and visually aesthetic plots for free. This book gets you up to speed with Bokeh - a popular Python library for interactive data visualization. The book starts out by helping you understand how Bokeh works internally and how you can set up and install the package in your local machine. You then use a real world data set which uses stock data from Kaggle to create interactive and visually stunning plots. You will also learn how to leverage Bokeh using some advanced concepts such as plotting with spatial and geo data. Finally you will use all the concepts that you have learned in the previous chapters to create your very own Bokeh application from scratch. By the end of the book you will be able to create your very own Bokeh application. You will have gone through a step by step process that starts with understanding what Bokeh actually is and ends with building your very own Bokeh application filled with interactive and visually aesthetic plots. Style and approach This books take you through a step by step process that starts with understanding what Bokeh actually is and ends with building your very own Bokeh application filled with interactive and visually aesthetic plots that will amaze your users.

IT service management automation at your fingertips About This Book ? Learn to leverage ServiceNow’s capabilities for improved IT automation by following step-by-step, practical instructions ? Build core administration, development, and maintenance skills with IT service management in ServiceNow ? Improve your workflow efficiency by designing and creating responsive and automated workflows, business logic, and front-end automation Who This Book Is For This book is for IT professionals and administrators who are planning to or are already trying to implement ServiceNow in their organization for Enterprise IT service management tasks. Some familiarity with web technologies (JavaScript) would be helpful. Prior ServiceNow experience is not necessary. What You Will Learn ? Read and write clear, effective code for the ServiceNow platform ? Identify and avoid common pitfalls and missteps that could seriously impact future progress and upgradeability ? Use debugging tools to troubleshoot when things go wrong ? Discover tips and tricks from top ServiceNow developers, architects, and administrators. Find out what the pros wish they knew when they were starting out In Detail This book is an updated version of Learning ServiceNow, that will cover the new and updated features of the ServiceNow platform. It will show you how to put important ServiceNow features to work in the real world, while introducing key concepts via examples of managing and automating IT services. It'll help you build a solid foundation of knowledge, and will demonstrate how to effectively implement and configure modules within ServiceNow. We'll show you how to configure and administer your instance, and then move on to building strong user interfaces and creating powerful workflows. We also cover other key elements of ServiceNow, such as notifications, security, reporting, and custom development. You will learn how to improve and automate your business' workflow and processes. By the end of this book, you will be able to successfully configure and manage ServiceNow like a pro. Style and approach This book is a step-by-step practical tutorial to help you quickly deploy and configure ServiceNow in your organization. It guides you through the process of building applications and understanding the underlying systems, to help you become a more effective ServiceNow/ITSM administrator and/or developer.

Leverage the power of Hyperledger Fabric to develop Blockchain-based distributed ledgers with ease About This Book ? Write your own chaincode/smart contracts using Golang on hyperledger network ? Build and deploy decentralized applications (DApps) ? Dive into real world blockchain challenges such as integration and scalability Who This Book Is For The book benefits business leaders as it provides a comprehensive view on blockchain business models, governance structure, and business design considerations of blockchain solutions. Technology leaders stand to gain a lot from the detailed discussion around the technology landscape, technology design, and architecture considerations in the book. With model-driven application development, this guide will speed up understanding and concept development for blockchain application developers. The simple and well organized content will put novices at ease with blockchain concepts and constructs. What You Will Learn ? Discover why blockchain is a game changer in the technology landscape ? Set up blockchain networks using basic Hyperledger Fabric deployment ? Understand the considerations for creating decentralized applications ? Learn the process of creating good business networks using Hyperledger ? Write Smart Contracts quickly with Hyperledger Composer ? Design transaction model and chaincode with Golang ? Deploy Composer REST Gateway to access the Composer transactions ? Discern how business network impacts your Hyperledger Fabric solutions In Detail Blockchain and Hyperledger technologies are hot topics. Hyperledger Fabric and Hyperledger Composer are open source projects that help organizations create private, permissioned blockchain networks. Applications that exploit them include finance, banking, supply chains, IoT, and much more. This book will be an easy reference to explore and build blockchain networks using Hyperledger technologies. This book will start by explaining the blockchain evolution, including an overview of relevant blockchain technologies. You will learn how to configure Hyperledger Fabric on a cloud platform. Understand the architectural components of Hyperledger Fabric, and how they are configured to build private blockchain networks, and applications that connect to them. You'll build up a network and application from scratch, starting with first principles. You'll learn how to implement smart contracts in chaincode and much more on the Hyperledger network. By the end of this book, you will be able to build and deploy your own decentralized applications using Hyperledger, addressing the key pain points encountered in the blockchain life cycle. Style and approach An easy-to-follow step by step guide which will help you get to grips with real world application of Hyperledger

Learn how to execute web application penetration testing end-to-end About This Book ? Build an end-to-end threat model landscape for web application security ? Learn both web application vulnerabilities and web intrusion testing ? Associate network vulnerabilities with a web application infrastructure Who This Book Is For Practical Web Penetration Testing is for you if you are a security professional, penetration tester, or stakeholder who wants to execute penetration testing using the latest and most popular tools. Basic knowledge of ethical hacking would be an added advantage. What You Will Learn ? Learn how to use Burp Suite effectively ? Use Nmap, Metasploit, and more tools for network infrastructure tests ? Practice using all web application hacking tools for intrusion tests using Kali Linux ? Learn how to analyze a web application using application threat modeling ? Know how to conduct web intrusion tests ? Understand how to execute network infrastructure tests ? Master automation of penetration testing functions for maximum efficiency using Python In Detail Companies all over the world want to hire professionals dedicated to application security. Practical Web Penetration Testing focuses on this very trend, teaching you how to conduct application security testing using real-life scenarios. To start with, you’ll set up an environment to perform web application penetration testing. You will then explore different penetration testing concepts such as threat modeling, intrusion test, infrastructure security threat, and more, in combination with advanced concepts such as Python scripting for automation. Once you are done learning the basics, you will discover end-to-end implementation of tools such as Metasploit, Burp Suite, and Kali Linux. Many companies deliver projects into production by using either Agile or Waterfall methodology. This book shows you how to assist any company with their SDLC approach and helps you on your journey to becoming an application security specialist. By the end of this book, you will have hands-on knowledge of using different tools for penetration testing. Style and approach In this book, you will learn and understand the workflow of application security testing. Starting from analysis using threat modeling until the testing phase and before the web project goes into production, you will be able conduct effective penetrating testing using web intrusion tests , network infrastructure tests, and code review.

Develop, test, and deploy decentralized applications for Ethereum platform About This Book ? Build your first Ethereum Dapp with Truffle: the most popular Ethereum development framework ? Build, compile, and deploy smart contracts in your development environment ? Embrace Blockchains and utilize it to create new generation of secured and scalable apps Who This Book Is For This book is for web developers who are interested in the new world blockchain. Some basic understanding of JavaScript and web services is required. No prior knowledge of Decentralized applications or blockchain is required. What You Will Learn ? Understand the fundamentals of Truffle and Web3 ? Build a decentralized application with Truffle, while choosing the correct Ethereum client ? Connect your Dapp to Ethereum clients including Geth, Parity, and Ganache ? Migrate and test your Dapp with the correct networks such as Ropsten and Rinkeby ? Package a decentralized application into a user-friendly product by integrating Truffle with JavaScript frameworks such as Angular, React and Vue ? Explore tools including Ethereum Package Manager, the Registrar and browser wallets, and exploit third-party smart contract libraries. ? Evaluate the common migration pitfalls and how to mitigate them In Detail Truffle is a world-class development environment, testing framework and asset pipeline for Ethereum, aiming to make life as an Ethereum developer easier. If you are a web developer wanting to try your hand at developing Dapps with Truffle, then this is the book for you. This book will teach you to write smart contracts and build Dapps with Truffle. You will begin with covering the basics of Truffle, briefly explaining how it integrates Solidity and Web3, in orderto start building a mini decentralized application. Also, you will dive into migration, testing and integrating Truffle with the use of popular JavaScript frameworks. Lastly, you will ship your decentralized application and package it into a product. Moreover, you will go through the best practices in Truffle,so as to increase your proficiency in building Dapps with Truffle. By the end of the book, you will be able to write smart contracts and build decentralized applications with Truffle on Ethereum blockchains. Style and approach An intuitive, step-by-step and engaging guide that will teach you to build a real-world, decentralized application with Truffle.

Bring realism to your games by mastering post-processing effects and advanced shading techniques in Unity 2018 About This Book ? Learn the secrets of creating AAA quality shaders without writing long algorithms ? Master shader programming through easy-to-follow examples ? Create stunning visual effects that can be used in 3D games Who This Book Is For Unity Shaders and Effects Cookbook is for developers who want to create their first shaders in Unity 2018 or wish to take their game to a whole new level by adding professional post-processing effects. A solid understanding of Unity is required to get the most from this book. What You Will Learn ? Understand physically based rendering to fit the aesthetic of your game ? Write shaders from scratch in ShaderLab and HLSL/Cg ? Combine shader programming with interactive scripts to add life to your materials ? Design efficient shaders for mobile platforms without sacrificing their realism ? Use state-of-the-art techniques, such as volumetric explosions and fur shading ? Master the math and algorithms behind the most used lighting models ? Understand how shader models have evolved and how you can create your own In Detail Since their introduction to Unity, shaders have been seen as notoriously difficult to understand and implement in games. Complex mathematics has always stood in the way of creating your own shaders and attaining the level of realism you crave. Unity 2018 Shaders and Effects Cookbook changes that by giving you a recipe-based guide to creating shaders using Unity. It will show you everything you need to know about vectors, how lighting is constructed with them, and how textures are used to create complex effects without the heavy math. This book starts by teaching you how to use shaders without writing code with the post-processing stack. Then, you’ll learn how to write shaders from scratch, build up essential lighting, and finish by creating stunning screen effects just like those in high-quality 3D and mobile games. You'll discover techniques, such as normal mapping, image-based lighting, and animating your models inside a shader. We'll explore how to use physically based rendering to treat light the way it behaves in the real world. At the end, we’ll even look at Unity 2018’s new Shader Graph system. With this book, what seems like a dark art today will be second nature by tomorrow. Style and approach The recipes in this book contain step-by-step instructions, complemented with screenshots, code, and real-world examples.

Enterprise Agility is practical framework for enhancing Agility and equipping your company with the tools to survive. About This Book ? Prepare your company to navigate the rapidly-moving business world ? Enhance Agility in every component of your organization ? Build a framework that meets the unique requirements of your enterprise Who This Book Is For Enterprise Agility is a tool for anyone with the motivation to influence outcomes in an enterprise, who aspires to improve Agility. Readers from the following backgrounds will benefit: chief executive officer, chief information officer, people/human resource director, information technology director, head of change program, head of transformation, and Agile coach/consultant. What You Will Learn ? Drive agility-oriented change across the enterprise ? Understand why agility matters (more than ever) to modern enterprises ? Adopt and influence an Agile mindset in your teams and in your organization ? Understand the concept of a CAS and how to model enterprise and leadership behaviors on CAS characteristics to enhance enterprise agility ? Understand and convey the differences between Agile and true enterprise agility ? Create an enterprise-specific action plan to enhance agility ? Become a champion for enterprise agility ? Recognize the advantages and challenges of distributed teams, and how Agile ways of working can remedy the rough spots ? Enable and motivate your IT partners to adopt Agile ways of working In Detail The biggest challenge enterprises face today is dealing with fast-paced change in all spheres of business. Enterprise Agility shows how an enterprise can address this challenge head on and thrive in the dynamic environment. Avoiding the mechanistic construction of existing enterprises that focus on predictability and certainty, Enterprise Agility delivers practical advice for responding and adapting to the scale and accelerating pace of disruptive change in the business environment. Agility is a fundamental shift in thinking about how enterprises work to effectively deal with disruptive changes in the business environment. The core belief underlying agility is that enterprises are open and living systems. These living systems, also known as complex adaptive systems (CAS), are ideally suited to deal with change very effectively. Agility is to enterprises what health is to humans. There are some foundational principles that can be broadly applied, but the definition of healthy is very specific to each individual. Enterprise Agility takes a similar approach with regard to agility: it suggests foundational practices to improve the overall health of the body—culture, mindset, and leadership—and the health of its various organs: people, process, governance, structure, technology, and customers. The book also suggests a practical framework to create a plan to enhance agility. Style and approach Enterprise Agility is a step-by-step guide to facing change and uncertainty head-on. The books provides practical ways to apply Agile methodologies and boost Agility throughout a business.

Transform games into environments using machine learning and Deep learning with Tensorflow, Keras, and Unity About This Book ? Learn how to apply core machine learning concepts to your games with Unity ? Learn the Fundamentals of Reinforcement Learning and Q-Learning and apply them to your games ? Learn How to build multiple asynchronous agents and run them in a training scenario Who This Book Is For This book is intended for developers with an interest in using Machine learning algorithms to develop better games and simulations with Unity. The reader will be required to have a working knowledge of C# and a basic understanding of Python. What You Will Learn ? Develop Reinforcement and Deep Reinforcement Learning for games. ? Understand complex and advanced concepts of reinforcement learning and neural networks ? Explore various training strategies for cooperative and competitive agent development ? Adapt the basic script components of Academy, Agent, and Brain to be used with Q Learning. ? Enhance the Q Learning model with improved training strategies such as Greedy-Epsilon exploration ? Implement a simple NN with Keras and use it as an external brain in Unity ? Understand how to add LTSM blocks to an existing DQN ? Build multiple asynchronous agents and run them in a training scenario In Detail Unity Machine Learning agents allow researchers and developers to create games and simulations using the Unity Editor, which serves as an environment where intelligent agents can be trained with machine learning methods through a simple-to-use Python API. This book takes you from the basics of Reinforcement and Q Learning to building Deep Recurrent Q-Network agents that cooperate or compete in a multi-agent ecosystem. You will start with the basics of Reinforcement Learning and how to apply it to problems. Then you will learn how to build self-learning advanced neural networks with Python and Keras/TensorFlow. From there you move o n to more advanced training scenarios where you will learn further innovative ways to train your network with A3C, imitation, and curriculum learning models. By the end of the book, you will have learned how to build more complex environments by building a cooperative and competitive multi-agent ecosystem. Style and approach This book focuses on the foundations of ML, RL and DL for building agents in a game or simulation

Use Java features such as JAX-RS, EJBs, and JPAs to build powerful middleware for newer architectures such as the cloud About This Book ? Explore EJBs to build middleware solutions for enterprise and distributed applications ? Understand middleware designs such as event-based and message-driven web services ? Learn to design and maintain large-scale systems and vendor disputes Who This Book Is For Enterprise architects, designers, developers, and programmers who are interested in learning how to build robust middleware solutions for enterprise software will find this book useful. Prior knowledge of Java EE is essential What You Will Learn ? Implement the latest Java EE 8 APIs and manage dependencies with CDI 2.0 ? Perform CRUD operations and access databases with JPA 2.1 ? Use bean validation API 2.0 to validate data ? Develop business logic with EJB 3.2 ? Incorporate the REST architecture and RESTful API design patterns ? Perform serialization and deserialization on JSON documents using JSON-B ? Utilize JMS for messaging and queuing models and securing applications ? Test applications using JUnit and Mockito and deploy them using Docker In Detail Middleware is the infrastructure in software based applications that enables businesses to solve problems, operate more efficiently, and make money. As the use of middleware extends beyond a single application, the importance of having it written by experts increases substantially. This book will help you become an expert in developing middleware for a variety of applications. The book starts off by exploring the latest Java EE 8 APIs with newer features and managing dependencies with CDI 2.0. You will learn to implement object-to-relational mapping using JPA 2.1 and validate data using bean validation. You will also work with different types of EJB to develop business logic, and with design RESTful APIs by utilizing different HTTP methods and activating JAX-RS features in enterprise applications. You will learn to secure your middleware with Java Security 1.0 and implement various authentication techniques, such as OAuth authentication. In the concluding chapters, you will use various test technologies, such as JUnit and Mockito, to test applications, and Docker to deploy your enterprise applications. By the end of the book, you will be proficient in developing robust, effective, and distributed middleware for your business. Style and approach Learn how to design and implement professional enterprise middleware solutions using the latest techniques and features provided by the Java EE 8 platform.

Learn to build a full-fledged application in Spring and Kotlin taking a reactive, microservice-based approach for scalability and robustness in the cloud About This Book ? Build a full-fledged application in Spring and Kotlin ? Architect your application to take a microservice-based approach in the cloud ? Integrate your application with a variety of Spring components Who This Book Is For Developers comfortable using Spring who have basic knowledge of Kotlin and want to take their development skills to the next level and build enterprise-grade applications will benefit from this book. What You Will Learn ? Explore Spring 5 concepts with Kotlin ? Learn both dependency injections and complex configurations ? Utilize Spring Data, Spring Cloud, and Spring Security in your applications ? Create efficient reactive systems with Project Reactor ? Write unit tests for your Spring/Kotlin applications ? Deploy applications on cloud platforms like AWS In Detail Kotlin is being used widely by developers because of its light weight, built-in null safety, and functional and reactive programming aspects. Kotlin shares the same pragmatic, innovative and opinionated mindset as Spring, so they work well together. Spring when combined with Kotlin helps you to reach a new level of productivity. This combination has helped developers to create Functional Applications using both the tools together. This book will teach you how to take advantage of these developments and build robust, scalable and reactive applications with ease. In this book, you will begin with an introduction to Spring and its setup with Kotlin. You will then dive into assessing the design considerations of your application. Then you will learn to use Spring (with Spring Boot) along with Kotlin to build a robust backend in a microservice architecture with a REST based collaboration, and leverage Project Reactor in your application. You’ll then learn how to integrate Spring Data and Spring Cloud to manage configurations for database interaction and cloud deployment. You’ll also learn to use Spring Security to beef up security of your application before testing it with the JUnit framework and then deploying it on a cloud platform like AWS. Style and approach Everything you learn will be demonstrated on real-world Spring project. In each chapter we will cover some of Spring features and apply it on our project. We will guide you from the project initialization till the project deployment.

Create microservices using Java EE technologies using WildFly Swarm,deploy them in the OpenShift cloud, make them resilient to network failures using Hystrix, configure continuous integration using Jenkins, and security using Keycloak. About This Book ? Create functional microservices with WildFly Swarm ? Use OpenShift to deploy your microservices in the cloud ? Make your application production-ready using Jenkins, Hystrix, and Keycloak Who This Book Is For If you're an experienced developer familiar with Java EE technologies and would like to learn how you can use those technologies in the cloud with WildFly and OpenShift, then this book is for you. What You Will Learn ? Utilize Java EE technology to develop modern cloud-enabled applications ? Easily create microservices with WildFly Swarm using proven Java EE technologies ? See the benefits of OpenShift – easy deployment of your services, out of the box scalability and healing, and integration with Continuous Integration tools ? Integrate the sample application with Jenkins’ Continuous Integration server ? Utilize Netflix OSS to connect your services and provide resilience to your application ? Provide security to your application using Keycloak In Detail The book starts by introducing you to WildFly Swarm—a tool that allows you to create runnable microservices from Java EE components. You’ll learn the basics of Swarm operation—creating a microservice containing only the parts of enterprise runtime needed in a specific case. Later, you’ll learn how to configure and test those services. In order to deploy our services in the cloud, we’ll use OpenShift. You’ll get to know basic information on its architecture, features, and relationship to Docker and Kubernetes. Later, you’ll learn how to deploy and configure your services to run in the OpenShift cloud. In the last part of the book, you’ll see how to make your application production-ready. You’ll find out how to configure continuous integration for your services using Jenkins, make your application resistant to network failures using Hystrix, and how to secure them using Keycloak. By the end of the book, you’ll have a fully functional example application and will have practical knowledge of Java EE cloud development that can be used as a reference in your other projects. Style and approach This example-based tutorial guides you step by step through creating an application based on well-known Java EE technologies (JAX-RS, CDI, JPA, and JSF) and modern architectural patterns.

Discover solutions to all your Tkinter and Python GUI development problems About This Book ? Integrate efficient Python GUI programming techniques with Tkinter ? Efficiently implement advanced MVC architectures in your Python GUI apps ? Solve all your problems related to Tkinter and Python GUI development Who This Book Is For This book is for Python developers who are familiar with the basics of the language syntax, data structures, and OOP. You do not need previous experience with Tkinter or other GUI development libraries. What You Will Learn ? Add widgets and handle user events ? Lay out widgets within windows using frames and the different geometry managers ? Configure widgets so that they have a customized appearance and behavior ? Improve the navigation of your apps with menus and dialogs ? Apply object-oriented programming techniques in Tkinter applications ? Use threads to achieve responsiveness and update the GUI ? Explore the capabilities of the canvas widget and the types of items that can be added to it ? Extend Tkinter applications with the TTK (themed Tkinter) module In Detail As one of the more versatile programming languages, Python is well-known for its batteries-included philosophy, which includes a rich set of modules in its standard library; Tkinter is the library included for building desktop applications. Due to this, Tkinter is a common choice for rapid GUI development, and more complex applications can benefit from the full capabilities of this library. This book covers all of your Tkinter and Python GUI development problems and solutions. Tkinter GUI Application Development Cookbook starts with an overview of Tkinter classes and at the same time provides recipes for basic topics, such as layout patterns and event handling. Next, we cover how to develop common GUI patterns, such as entering and saving data, navigating through menus and dialogs, and performing long-running actions in the background. You will then make your apps leverage network resources effectively, perform 2D and 3D animation-related tasks, create 3D objects, and perform advanced graphical operations. Finally, this book covers using the canvas and themed widgets. By the end of the book, you will have an in-depth knowledge of Tkinter classes, and will know how to use them to build efficient and rich GUI applications. Style and approach A practical recipe-based guide that will help you find solutions to all your Tkinter and Python GUI development-related problems.

Build full-stack shopping list applications from scratch for web and mobile platforms using Xcode, Vapor, and Swift About This Book ? Build, package, and deploy an end-to-end app solution for mobile and web with Swift 4 ? Increase developer productivity by creating reusable client and server components ? Develop backend services for your apps and websites using Vapor framework Who This Book Is For This book is for developers who are looking to build full-stack web and native mobile applications using Swift. An understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript would be beneficial when building server-rendered pages with Vapor. What You Will Learn ? Get accustomed to server-side programming as well as the Vapor framework ? Learn how to build a RESTful API ? Make network requests from your app and handle error states when a network request fails ? Deploy your app to Heroku using the CLI command ? Write a test for the Vapor backend ? Create a tvOS version of your shopping list app and explore code-sharing with an iOS platform ? Add registration and authentication so that users can have their own shopping lists In Detail Making Swift an open-source language enabled it to share code between a native app and a server. Building a scalable and secure server backend opens up new possibilities, such as building an entire application written in one language—Swift. This book gives you a detailed walk-through of tasks such as developing a native shopping list app with Swift and creating a full-stack backend using Vapor (which serves as an API server for the mobile app). You'll also discover how to build a web server to support dynamic web pages in browsers, thereby creating a rich application experience. You’ll begin by planning and then building a native iOS app using Swift. Then, you'll get to grips with building web pages and creating web views of your native app using Vapor. To put things into perspective, you'll learn how to build an entire full-stack web application and an API server for your native mobile app, followed by learning how to deploy the app to the cloud, and add registration and authentication to it. Once you get acquainted with creating applications, you'll build a tvOS version of the shopping list app and explore how easy is it to create an app for a different platform with maximum code shareability. Towards the end, you’ll also learn how to create an entire app for different platforms in Swift, thus enhancing your productivity. Style and approach A step-by-step tutorial-based approach that teaches you full-stack Swift through the development of a single application on several platforms.

Delve into neural networks, implement deep learning algorithms, and explore layers of data abstraction with the help of TensorFlow v1.7. About This Book ? Learn how to implement advanced techniques in deep learning with Google's brainchild, TensorFlow v1.7 ? Explore deep neural networks and layers of data abstraction with the help of this comprehensive guide ? Gain real-world contextualization through some deep learning problems concerning research and application Who This Book Is For The book is for people interested in machine learning and machine intelligence. A rudimentary level of programming in one language is assumed, as is a basic familiarity with computer science techniques and technologies, including a basic awareness of computer hardware and algorithms. Some competence in mathematics is needed to the level of elementary linear algebra and calculus. What You Will Learn ? Apply deep machine intelligence and GPU computing with TensorFlow v1.7 ? Access public datasets and use TensorFlow to load, process, and transform the data ? Discover how to use the high-level TensorFlow API to build more powerful applications ? Use deep learning for scalable object detection and mobile computing ? Train machines quickly to learn from data by exploring reinforcement learning techniques ? Explore active areas of deep learning research and applications In Detail Deep learning is a branch of machine learning algorithms based on learning multiple levels of abstraction. Neural networks, which are at the core of deep learning, are being used in predictive analytics, computer vision, natural language processing, time series forecasting, and to perform a myriad of other complex tasks. This book is conceived for developers, data analysts, machine learning practitioners and deep learning enthusiasts who want to build powerful, robust, and accurate predictive models with the power of TensorFlow v1.7, combined with other open source Python libraries. Throughout the book, you’ll learn how to develop deep learning applications for machine learning systems using Feedforward Neural Networks, Convolutional Neural Networks, Recurrent Neural Networks, Autoencoders, and Factorization Machines. Discover how to attain deep learning programming on GPU in a distributed way. You'll come away with an in-depth knowledge of machine learning techniques and the skills to apply them to real-world projects. Style and approach This step-by-step guide explores common, and not so common, deep neural networks, and shows how they can be exploited in the real world with complex raw data. Benefit from practical examples, and learn how to implement different types of neural nets to build smart applications related to text, speech, and image data processing.