Computers books

Explore distributed ledger technology, decentralization, and smart contracts and develop real-time decentralized applications with Ethereum and Solidity Key Features Get to grips with the underlying technical principles and implementations of blockchain Build powerful applications using Ethereum to secure transactions and create smart contracts Gain advanced insights into cryptography and cryptocurrencies Book Description Blockchain technology is a distributed ledger with applications in industries such as finance, government, and media. This Learning Path is your guide to building blockchain networks using Ethereum, JavaScript, and Solidity. You will get started by understanding the technical foundations of blockchain technology, including distributed systems, cryptography and how this digital ledger keeps data secure. Further into the chapters, you'll gain insights into developing applications using Ethereum and Hyperledger. As you build on your knowledge of Ether security, mining , smart contracts, and Solidity, you'll learn how to create robust and secure applications that run exactly as programmed without being affected by fraud, censorship, or third-party interference. Toward the concluding chapters, you'll explore how blockchain solutions can be implemented in applications such as IoT apps, in addition to its use in currencies. The Learning Path will also highlight how you can increase blockchain scalability and even discusses the future scope of this fascinating and powerful technology. By the end of this Learning Path, you'll be equipped with the skills you need to tackle pain points encountered in the blockchain life cycle and confidently design and deploy decentralized applications. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: Mastering Blockchain - Second Edition by Imran Bashir Building Blockchain Projects by Narayan Prusty What you will learn Understand why decentralized applications are important Discover the mechanisms behind bitcoin and alternative cryptocurrencies Master how cryptography is used to secure data with the help of examples Maintain, monitor, and manage your blockchain solutions Create Ethereum wallets Explore research topics and the future scope of blockchain technology Who this book is for This Learning Path is designed for blockchain developers who want to build decentralized applications and smart contracts from scratch using Hyperledger. Basic familiarity with any programming language will be useful to get started with this Learning Path.

Become an expert at C++ by learning all the key C++ concepts and working through interesting exercises Key Features Explore C++ concepts through descriptive graphics and interactive exercises Learn how to keep your development bug-free with testing and debugging Discover various techniques to optimize your code Book Description C++ is one of the most widely used programming languages and is applied in a variety of domains, right from gaming to graphical user interface (GUI) programming and even operating systems. If you're looking to expand your career opportunities, mastering the advanced features of C++ is key. The book begins with advanced C++ concepts by helping you decipher the sophisticated C++ type system and understand how various stages of compilation convert source code to object code. You'll then learn how to recognize the tools that need to be used in order to control the flow of execution, capture data, and pass data around. By creating small models, you'll even discover how to use advanced lambdas and captures and express common API design patterns in C++. As you cover later chapters, you'll explore ways to optimize your code by learning about memory alignment, cache access, and the time a program takes to run. The concluding chapter will help you to maximize performance by understanding modern CPU branch prediction and how to make your code cache-friendly. By the end of this book, you'll have developed programming skills that will set you apart from other C++ programmers. What you will learn Delve into the anatomy and workflow of C++ Study the pros and cons of different approaches to coding in C++ Test, run, and debug your programs Link object files as a dynamic library Use templates, SFINAE, constexpr if expressions and variadic templates Apply best practice to resource management Who this book is for If you have worked in C++ but want to learn how to make the most of this language, especially for large projects, this book is for you. A general understanding of programming and knowledge of using an editor to produce code files in project directories is a must. Some experience with strongly typed languages, such as C and C++, is also recommended.

Advanced Customer Analytics provides a clear guide to the specific analytical challenges faced by the retail sector. The book covers the nature and scale of data obtained in transactions, relative proximity to the consumer and the need to monitor customer behaviour across multiple channels. The book advocates a category management approach, taking into account the need to understand the consumer mindset through elasticity modelling and discount strategies, as well as targeted marketing and loyalty design.A practical, no-nonsense approach to complex scenarios is taken throughout, breaking down tasks into easily digestible steps. The use of a fictional retail analyst 'Scott' helps to provide accessible examples of practice. Advanced Customer Analytics does not skirt around the complexities of this subject but offers conceptual support to steer retail marketers towards making the right choices for analysing their data. Online resources include a selection of datasets to support specific chapters.

Publisher's Note: This edition from 2018 is outdated and is not compatible with TensorFlow 2 or any of the most recent updates to Python libraries. A new second edition, updated for 2020 and featuring TensorFlow 2 and coverage of unsupervised learning using mutual information, object detection, and semantic segmentation, has now been published. A comprehensive guide to advanced deep learning techniques, including autoencoders, GANs, VAEs, and deep reinforcement learning that drive today's most impressive AI results. Key Features Explore the most advanced deep learning techniques that drive modern AI results Implement deep neural networks, autoencoders, GANs, VAEs, and deep reinforcement learning A wide study of GANs, including Improved GANs, Cross-Domain GANs, and Disentangled Representation GANs Book Description Recent developments in deep learning, including Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), Variational Autoencoders (VAEs), and Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) are creating impressive AI results in our news headlines - such as AlphaGo Zero beating world chess champions, and generative AI that can create art paintings that sell for over $400k because they are so human-like. Advanced Deep Learning with Keras is a comprehensive guide to the advanced deep learning techniques available today, so you can create your own cutting-edge AI. Using Keras as an open-source deep learning library, you'll find hands-on projects throughout that show you how to create more effective AI with the latest techniques. The journey begins with an overview of MLPs, CNNs, and RNNs, which are the building blocks for the more advanced techniques in the book. You'll learn how to implement deep learning models with Keras and TensorFlow 1.x, and move forwards to advanced techniques, as you explore deep neural network architectures, including ResNet and DenseNet, and how to create autoencoders. You then learn all about GANs, and how they can open new levels of AI performance. Next, you'll get up to speed with how VAEs are implemented, and you'll see how GANs and VAEs have the generative power to synthesize data that can be extremely convincing to humans - a major stride forward for modern AI. To complete this set of advanced techniques, you'll learn how to implement DRL such as Deep Q-Learning and Policy Gradient Methods, which are critical to many modern results in AI. What you will learn Cutting-edge techniques in human-like AI performance Implement advanced deep learning models using Keras The building blocks for advanced techniques - MLPs, CNNs, and RNNs Deep neural networks – ResNet and DenseNet Autoencoders and Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and creative AI techniques Disentangled Representation GANs, and Cross-Domain GANs Deep reinforcement learning methods and implementation Produce industry-standard applications using OpenAI Gym Deep Q-Learning and Policy Gradient Methods Who this book is for Some fluency with Python is assumed. As an advanced book, you'll be familiar with some machine learning approaches, and some practical experience with DL will be helpful. Knowledge of Keras or TensorFlow 1.x is not required but would be helpful.

Gain expertise in advanced deep learning domains such as neural networks, meta-learning, graph neural networks, and memory augmented neural networks using the Python ecosystem Key Features Get to grips with building faster and more robust deep learning architectures Investigate and train convolutional neural network (CNN) models with GPU-accelerated libraries such as TensorFlow and PyTorch Apply deep neural networks (DNNs) to computer vision problems, NLP, and GANs Book Description In order to build robust deep learning systems, you'll need to understand everything from how neural networks work to training CNN models. In this book, you'll discover newly developed deep learning models, methodologies used in the domain, and their implementation based on areas of application. You'll start by understanding the building blocks and the math behind neural networks, and then move on to CNNs and their advanced applications in computer vision. You'll also learn to apply the most popular CNN architectures in object detection and image segmentation. Further on, you'll focus on variational autoencoders and GANs. You'll then use neural networks to extract sophisticated vector representations of words, before going on to cover various types of recurrent networks, such as LSTM and GRU. You'll even explore the attention mechanism to process sequential data without the help of recurrent neural networks (RNNs). Later, you'll use graph neural networks for processing structured data, along with covering meta-learning, which allows you to train neural networks with fewer training samples. Finally, you'll understand how to apply deep learning to autonomous vehicles. By the end of this book, you'll have mastered key deep learning concepts and the different applications of deep learning models in the real world. What you will learn Cover advanced and state-of-the-art neural network architectures Understand the theory and math behind neural networks Train DNNs and apply them to modern deep learning problems Use CNNs for object detection and image segmentation Implement generative adversarial networks (GANs) and variational autoencoders to generate new images Solve natural language processing (NLP) tasks, such as machine translation, using sequence-to-sequence models Understand DL techniques, such as meta-learning and graph neural networks Who this book is for This book is for data scientists, deep learning engineers and researchers, and AI developers who want to further their knowledge of deep learning and build innovative and unique deep learning projects. Anyone looking to get to grips with advanced use cases and methodologies adopted in the deep learning domain using real-world examples will also find this book useful. Basic understanding of deep learning concepts and working knowledge of the Python programming language is assumed.

Discover best practices for choosing, building, training, and improving deep learning models using Keras-R, and TensorFlow-R libraries Key Features Implement deep learning algorithms to build AI models with the help of tips and tricks Understand how deep learning models operate using expert techniques Apply reinforcement learning, computer vision, GANs, and NLP using a range of datasets Book Description Deep learning is a branch of machine learning based on a set of algorithms that attempt to model high-level abstractions in data. Advanced Deep Learning with R will help you understand popular deep learning architectures and their variants in R, along with providing real-life examples for them. This deep learning book starts by covering the essential deep learning techniques and concepts for prediction and classification. You will learn about neural networks, deep learning architectures, and the fundamentals for implementing deep learning with R. The book will also take you through using important deep learning libraries such as Keras-R and TensorFlow-R to implement deep learning algorithms within applications. You will get up to speed with artificial neural networks, recurrent neural networks, convolutional neural networks, long short-term memory networks, and more using advanced examples. Later, you'll discover how to apply generative adversarial networks (GANs) to generate new images; autoencoder neural networks for image dimension reduction, image de-noising and image correction and transfer learning to prepare, define, train, and model a deep neural network. By the end of this book, you will be ready to implement your knowledge and newly acquired skills for applying deep learning algorithms in R through real-world examples. What you will learn Learn how to create binary and multi-class deep neural network models Implement GANs for generating new images Create autoencoder neural networks for image dimension reduction, image de-noising and image correction Implement deep neural networks for performing efficient text classification Learn to define a recurrent convolutional network model for classification in Keras Explore best practices and tips for performance optimization of various deep learning models Who this book is for This book is for data scientists, machine learning practitioners, deep learning researchers and AI enthusiasts who want to develop their skills and knowledge to implement deep learning techniques and algorithms using the power of R. A solid understanding of machine learning and working knowledge of the R programming language are required.

Master the intricacies of Elasticsearch 7.0 and use it to create flexible and scalable search solutions Key Features Master the latest distributed search and analytics capabilities of Elasticsearch 7.0 Perform searching, indexing, and aggregation of your data at scale Discover tips and techniques for speeding up your search query performance Book Description Building enterprise-grade distributed applications and executing systematic search operations call for a strong understanding of Elasticsearch and expertise in using its core APIs and latest features. This book will help you master the advanced functionalities of Elasticsearch and understand how you can develop a sophisticated, real-time search engine confidently. In addition to this, you'll also learn to run machine learning jobs in Elasticsearch to speed up routine tasks. You'll get started by learning to use Elasticsearch features on Hadoop and Spark and make search results faster, thereby improving the speed of query results and enhancing the customer experience. You'll then get up to speed with performing analytics by building a metrics pipeline, defining queries, and using Kibana for intuitive visualizations that help provide decision-makers with better insights. The book will later guide you through using Logstash with examples to collect, parse, and enrich logs before indexing them in Elasticsearch. By the end of this book, you will have comprehensive knowledge of advanced topics such as Apache Spark support, machine learning using Elasticsearch and scikit-learn, and real-time analytics, along with the expertise you need to increase business productivity, perform analytics, and get the very best out of Elasticsearch. What you will learn Pre-process documents before indexing in ingest pipelines Learn how to model your data in the real world Get to grips with using Elasticsearch for exploratory data analysis Understand how to build analytics and RESTful services Use Kibana, Logstash, and Beats for dashboard applications Get up to speed with Spark and Elasticsearch for real-time analytics Explore the basics of Spring Data Elasticsearch, and understand how to index, search, and query in a Spring application Who this book is for This book is for Elasticsearch developers and data engineers who want to take their basic knowledge of Elasticsearch to the next level and use it to build enterprise-grade distributed search applications. Prior experience of working with Elasticsearch will be useful to get the most out of this book.

Gain a deeper understanding of JavaScript and apply it to build small applications in backend, frontend, and mobile frameworks. Key Features Explore the new ES6 syntax, the event loop, and asynchronous programming Learn the test-driven development approach when building apps Master advanced JavaScript concepts to enhance your web developments skill Book Description If you are looking for a programming language to develop flexible and efficient applications, JavaScript is an obvious choice. Advanced JavaScript is a hands-on guide that takes you through JavaScript and its many features, one step at a time. You'll begin by learning how to use the new JavaScript syntax in ES6, and then work through the many other features that modern JavaScript has to offer. As you progress through the chapters, you'll use asynchronous programming with callbacks and promises, handle browser events, and perform Document Object Model (DOM) manipulation. You'll also explore various methods of testing JavaScript projects. In the concluding chapters, you'll discover functional programming and learn to use it to build your apps. With this book as your guide, you'll also be able to develop APIs using Node.js and Express, create front-ends using React/Redux, and build mobile apps using React/Expo. By the end of Advanced JavaScript, you will have explored the features and benefits of JavaScript to build small applications. What you will learn Examine major features in ES6 and implement those features to build applications Create promise and callback handlers to work with asynchronous processes Develop asynchronous flows using Promise chaining and async/await syntax Manipulate the DOM with JavaScript Handle JavaScript browser events Explore Test Driven Development and build code tests with JavaScript code testing frameworks. List the benefits and drawbacks of functional programming compared to other styles Construct applications with the Node.js backend framework and the React frontend framework Who this book is for This book is designed to target anyone who wants to write JavaScript in a professional environment. We expect the audience to have used JavaScript in some capacity and be familiar with the basic syntax. This book would be good for a tech enthusiast wondering when to use generators or how to use Promises and Callbacks effectively, or a novice developer who wants to deepen their knowledge on JavaScript and understand TDD.

Master machine learning techniques with real-world projects that interface TensorFlow with R, H2O, MXNet, and other languages Key Features Gain expertise in machine learning, deep learning and other techniques Build intelligent end-to-end projects for finance, social media, and a variety of domains Implement multi-class classification, regression, and clustering Book Description R is one of the most popular languages when it comes to exploring the mathematical side of machine learning and easily performing computational statistics. This Learning Path shows you how to leverage the R ecosystem to build efficient machine learning applications that carry out intelligent tasks within your organization. You'll tackle realistic projects such as building powerful machine learning models with ensembles to predict employee attrition. You'll explore different clustering techniques to segment customers using wholesale data and use TensorFlow and Keras-R for performing advanced computations. You'll also be introduced to reinforcement learning along with its various use cases and models. Additionally, it shows you how some of these black-box models can be diagnosed and understood. By the end of this Learning Path, you'll be equipped with the skills you need to deploy machine learning techniques in your own projects. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: R Machine Learning Projects by Dr. Sunil Kumar Chinnamgari Mastering Machine Learning with R - Third Edition by Cory Lesmeister What you will learn Develop a joke recommendation engine to recommend jokes that match users' tastes Build autoencoders for credit card fraud detection Work with image recognition and convolutional neural networks Make predictions for casino slot machine using reinforcement learning Implement NLP techniques for sentiment analysis and customer segmentation Produce simple and effective data visualizations for improved insights Use NLP to extract insights for text Implement tree-based classifiers including random forest and boosted tree Who this book is for If you are a data analyst, data scientist, or machine learning developer this is an ideal Learning Path for you. Each project will help you test your skills in implementing machine learning algorithms and techniques. A basic understanding of machine learning and working knowledge of R programming is necessary to get the most out of this Learning Path.

Design cost-efficient database solutions, scale enterprise operations and reduce overhead business costs with MySQL Key Features Explore the new and advanced features of MySQL 8.0 Use advanced techniques to optimize MySQL performance Create MySQL-based applications for your enterprise with the help of practical examples Book Description Advanced MySQL 8 teaches you to enhance your existing database infrastructure and build various tools to improve your enterprise applications and overall website performance. The book starts with the new and exciting MySQL 8.0 features and how to utilize them for maximum efficiency. As you make your way through the chapters, you will learn to optimize MySQL performance using indexes and advanced data query techniques for large queries. You will also discover MySQL Server 8.0 settings and work with the MySQL data dictionary to boost the performance of your database. In the concluding chapters, you will cover MySQL 8.0 Group Replication, which will enable you to create elastic, highly available, and fault-tolerant replication topologies. You will also explore backup and recovery techniques for your databases and understand important tips and tricks to help your critical data reach its full potential. By the end of this book, you'll have learned about new MySQL 8.0 security features that allow a database administrator (DBA) to simplify user management and increase the security of their multi-user environments. What you will learn Explore new and exciting features of MySQL 8.0 Analyze and optimize large MySQL queries Understand MySQL Server 8.0 settings Master the deployment of Group Replication and use it in an InnoDB cluster Monitor large distributed databases Discover different types of backups and recovery methods for your databases Explore tips to help your critical data reach its full potential Who this book is for Advanced MySQL 8 is for database administrators, data architects, and database developers who want to dive deeper into building advanced database applications in the MySQL environment.